WASHINGTON — In only his second week in office, Barack Obama is punching the restart button on his presidency.
On Tuesday, Day 14 of a tenure that began with high hopes and soaring promises of bringing a new competence to Washington, Obama essentially admitted that he had lost ground in confronting his biggest challenge -- fixing the country's crippled economy -- due to the "self-inflicted injury" of naming appointees who had failed to pay their taxes.
He shed two of those appointees and then took to the airwaves -- conducting not one but five Oval Office network television interviews in which he sought to seize control over the economic stimulus debate. Republicans have found traction on the issue by painting themselves as defenders of taxpayers and homeowners, while portraying Democrats as frivolous big spenders.
"I'm frustrated with myself, with our team," Obama told NBC's Brian Williams in a comment that was typical for his afternoon of televised mea culpas. "But ultimately my job is to get this thing back on track, because what we need to focus on is a deteriorating economy and getting people back to work."
He told ABC's Charles Gibson that he "can't afford glitches."
"Right now what I should be spending time talking to you about is how we're going to put 3 to 4 million people back to work," he said.
"This is a self-induced injury that I'm angry about," he added, "and we're going to make sure we get it fixed."
To the network anchors he repeated a surprising mantra: "I screwed up."
Obama's language was striking in part because the man he replaced, George W. Bush, famously refused to admit error, at least until his final days in the White House.
For the new president, winning passage of a stimulus plan has become only more difficult in recent weeks. A surprisingly unified GOP has taken control of the debate -- and embarrassed Democrats -- by highlighting controversial expenditures in the $819-billion bill passed last week by the Democratic-led House, such as funding for contraceptives and for new sod for the National Mall.
Those items were stripped from the bill, but their presence in the debate put the White House on the defensive in pushing legislation that, not long ago, many Democrats had thought could be delivered to the new president within days, if not hours, of his taking office Jan. 20.
