Having squandered the first two years of his presidency ramming through a healthcare reform that could not win the support of a single Republican on Capitol Hill and is now mired in the courts, he finds himself confronting a divided Congress.

So the only thing that matters to the people around Obama, who are eager for another four years of employment, is his re-election. I’ve long thought that Obama himself is lukewarm about continuing in a job where the adulation he is used to is in short supply. For Democratic powerbrokers, however, maintaining their grasp of the White House is everything…

White House aides seemed to think that Republicans would meekly allow him to eclipse the debate or appear petty and partisan by rebuffing him. In fact, Washington’s political establishment immediately recognised that the breach in protocol was by Obama, not John Boehner, the House Speaker, and the White House swiftly climbed down and agreed to Thursday.

The rhetoric afterwards gave a foretaste of the scorched earth re-election campaign Obama will run. While Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, gave an impression of a choirboy who would not let butter melt in his mouth, the hardball anonymous briefings were taking place.