Obama Press Conference Post-Game

I'm just about to head back to Jersey, but I wanted to give my quick impressions of this press conference, my first in the White House.

There wasn't a lot of really new stuff here, aside from the "depressing" news about A-Rod. The one thing I took note of was that he stressed the idea that he had inherited this mess, more than I've heard it before. He also revisited several of the statements he made at the Democrats' congressional retreat.

He also returned to the theme of bi-partisanship, re-framing the slender support for this bill as Republicans needing to break old habits, that they'll come around.

To me, Obama is signaling that he has reached across the aisle as far as he's going to, and the Republicans will have to either reach back, or sit on their hands.

After the press conference, I got to speak briefly with David Axelrod, and I asked him if he thought the Republicans had been negotiating in good faith, or would they never have supported the measure more broadly no matter what.

"I don't know the answer to that," he said,"all I know is that we've passed a few tests in the Senate, we're advancing this bill, we're getting closer to the time when we can look the American people in the eye and say 'Help is on the way.' That's what we're focused on, we're not keeping score. We're trying to keep track of what's important."

Here's Axelrod's interview with Rachel Maddow, just before I spoke with him.

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