Some highlights of President Obama's postmortem press conference on yesterday's vote, from Politico and AP.
- He blamed voter anger mainly on the economy and said, "As president, I take responsibility for that." Another mea culpa: "We were in such a hurry to get things done that we didn’t change how things got done. I think that frustrated people."
- Pressed on whether the vote was a reflection on his agenda, he acknowledged that he, too, was "doing a whole lot of reflecting." He said he is "sympathetic" to those who look at new laws and think, "This looks like potential overreach."
- He called the trouncing "something that I think every president needs to go through,” before joking, "Now, I'm not recommending for every future president that they take a shellacking like I did last night.”