From Todd Purdum's press conference postmortem in The New York Times:

With his presidency at best becalmed - and at worst beset - just 99 days into his second term, President Bush seized the prime-time power of an East Room news conference for only the fourth time in his tenure in an effort to show that he could still do what he has always done in the face of storms around him: make his own weather....

"I'm not surprised that some are balking at doing hard work," Mr. Bush said in answer to the first question about whether he was frustrated at the slow progress of his agenda. "But I have a duty as the president to define problems facing our nation and to call upon people to act."

So Mr. Bush did what he likes to do best: He took his case directly to the people....

Er, those two bits in bold -- how can they both be true?