Stay focused on big picture, Obama urges

WASHINGTON -- At his news conference Tuesday night, President Obama was walking a careful line.

He is on the cusp, he hopes, of unlocking the credit crisis and saving the village while simultaneously trying to persuade a populist throng carrying pitchforks not to light any matches that might burn it down.

So he expressed solidarity with those who are outraged that AIG executives were awarded $165 million in bonuses at a time the company was being propped up by billions in federal rescue funds, but he also urged Americans to keep their focus on the big picture.

"We will recover from this recession, but it will take time, it will take patience," he said in a seven-minute opening statement, read from a teleprompter screen. Later, his only flash of annoyance came when pressed by CNN's Ed Henry about his slowness in decrying the AIG bonuses.

"It took us a couple of days because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak," he replied.

Obama touted his proposal to overhaul the financial regulatory system — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is slated to unveil more details Thursday — and pushed for his budget. Obama heads to Capitol Hill today to defend his budget plan.

The president's tone was a mix of the populist — "I'm as angry as anybody about those bonuses," he said at one point, albeit with a calm demeanor — and the professor. "What we have to do is bend the curve on these deficit projections," he said at another.

"It's hard to do both things at once — to say, 'What an outrage! But let's not burn down the building,' " said Andrew Kohut, director of the non-partisan Pew Research Center. "In so many of these cases, he has to say, 'Yes, but ...' "

Bruce Reed, a top White House adviser for President Clinton who now heads the Democratic Leadership Council, called the session "a fireside press conference" aimed at explaining his plan and channeling the country's anger.

Left unchecked, rage over the bonuses could make it harder to get imperiled banks and other companies to participate in federal programs, and it could make it impossible for the White House to get more money from Congress if more bailouts are needed.