I assume this is his way of saying that it won’t be quite as bad as the Great Depression, just almost as bad. Hope, for a Change:

Richard Parsons, chairman of beleaguered Citigroup Inc., asked if Obama could offer some help in a national battle “between confidence and fear.”

“A smidgen of good news and suddenly everything is doing great. A little bit of bad news and ooohh , we’re down on the dumps,” Obama said. “And I am obviously an object of this constantly varying assessment. I am the object in chief of this varying assessment.”

“I don’t think things are ever as good as they say, or ever as bad as they say,” Obama added. “Things two years ago were not as good as we thought because there were a lot of underlying weaknesses in the economy. They’re not as bad as we think they are now.”

“And my long-term projections are highly optimistic, if we take care of some of these long-term structural problems.”

Do we get to remind him that he said this the next time he asks for a trillion dollars in spending or is this, like his campaign promise about rejecting signing statements, just more crap that we’re not supposed to take seriously? Exit question: The One says things aren’t as bad as they seem, Specter says they’re even worse than they seem. I don’t trust either of them. Who’s right?