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If you have to claim you do, you don't. [Link]

“Mr. President, you are a hundred days into your second term…my question to you is do you still have the juice to get the rest of your agenda through this Congress?” asked ABC’s Jonathan Karl — eliciting a surprised chuckle and “goll-y” from the commander-in-chief during a Tuesday morning press conference in the White House briefing room.

“You know… as Mark Twain said, you know, rumors of my demise may be a little exaggerated at this point,” said Obama, who seemed a lot less lighthearted than during his sharp-elbowed stand-up routine at the White House Correspondents Association dinner on Saturday.

NPR is confused. [Link]

Announced shortly after 8:30 a.m. and slated for 10:15, this was to be the first such media availability in two months — and just the third this year. A mood of expectation arose in the briefing room, especially as the start time slipped to 10:30 and then 10:45.

It felt as though something newsworthy must be happening. But as it turned out, not so much.

The president had no announcement to make — not even an opening statement. Instead, he plunged right into the queries, nearly all of them posed in a challenging tone. What about Syria, the Boston Marathon bombing, Mexico, the Republicans in Congress and the challenge of administering Obamacare?

The president wound his way through the session, wrapped it up and then returned to respond to a shouted question about Jason Collins, the NBA player who announced Monday that he is gay.

As usual, the president was mostly calm and explicative. But what stood out were the moments when he seemed at a loss to deal with the ongoing frustrations of dealing with Congress.

Again and again, the president seemed to be saying: "OK, that didn't work out so well, but I tried to do what needed to be done and the Republicans wouldn't let me."

No one should doubt that the Republicans are working to thwart this president on a host of issues. They would be the first to say so.

But no matter how frustrating a president finds this dilemma at the heart of our shared-power system, it does not advance his cause to wear his frustration in public. The chief executive is always better served if he can appear larger than the quotidian give-and-take. Yes, he must acknowledge the difficulties he faces, but he also needs to transcend them.