There is far too little time before the midterm election to demonize Mr. Boehner as President Bill Clinton so effectively did to Speaker Newt Gingrich in the 1990s. That took a concerted White House effort over nearly two years that cost tens of millions of dollars for ads.

And does Mr. Obama think this will make it easier to work with Mr. Boehner after Nov. 2 if Republicans take the House and he becomes the speaker? After all, one of the public’s biggest disappointments with this president is that he has failed miserably in his promise to change the political tone.

Mr. Obama’s personal attacks on the GOP leader may be therapeutic for him and send a thrill up the leg of left-wingers, but it has cost him (and his party) dearly with independents and college-educated voters. In a little more than a year and a half, the president has lost a third of his support among independents, many of whom are ready to punish Democrats at the polls.

Then there’s this oddity: Why did the president raise the issue of tax cuts so close to the election?