But once again, 13 months ago, the upbeat president had little bad to say about one-party governance, pundits and politics. And there was no criticism of the filibuster -- which in early 2009 was considered irrelevant anyway, given Obama's supermajority in the Senate.
So what's behind Obama sudden embrace of statesmanship?
A year ago, a newly elected President Obama enjoyed a 68 percent public approval rating. There were substantial Democratic majorities in both houses of the Congress. Presidential press conferences were little more than media lovefests. Apparently there was no need to reach out, when a bold, new liberal agenda for the country seemed a sure thing.
But now? Obama consistently polls below 50 percent. The Senate supermajority was lost with the stunning win of Republican Scott Brown in liberal Massachusetts. A grassroots conservative tea-party movement helped put Republican governors in Virginia and New Jersey. And polls show that the November 2010 elections might result in the largest Democratic setback in a generation, with possible losses of both houses of Congress.
Pundits of both parties now fault Obama's style of governance. Public protests express disapproval over out-of-control federal spending and borrowing, and the idea of state-run health care.
So fairly or not, it seems like a panicked President Obama is abruptly scrambling to do what he should have done over a year ago.
But the problem is that a now jaded public believes that Obama is changing both course and tone not because he wants to for the country, but because he is forced to for his own survival.
In other words, the "hope and change" of last year's messiah has devolved into this year's "whatever it takes" of a cynic.