“You know, we’ve gotten kind of used to this sort of verbal tantrums from the president. To me it’s a little more petulance than presidential,” Ryan told NBC. “He’s trying to use this kind of rhetoric to distort away from his failed record.”

Ryan used the same phrase (which echoes an editorial defending Ryan in the conservative National Review) on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” a few minutes later,. He added that Obama’s much-touted Buffett Rule is “pixie dust.”