White House Chief of Staff: 'It's Been a Brutal 3 Years'

Roger Simon of Politico has an entertaining interview with White House chief of staff Bill Daley. Some highlights:

• How it's going: “It’s been a brutal three years. It’s been a very, very difficult three years, an incredible three years. And we are doing all this under the overhang of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. F--k! It wasn’t like all this was happening in good times."
• On 'we can't wait': "Both Democrats and Republicans have really made it very difficult for the president to be anything like a chief executive. This has led to a kind of frustration," and to the president's push for the executive branch to do as much as it can without Congress.

• Partisan politics: “You know, when the minority leader of the Senate says my No. 1 objective in life is to make President Obama a one-term president, and then all decisions flow from that, it’s pretty hard not to be pretty cynical about that.” (Mitch McConnell's exact quote: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.")
• What's ahead: “There is a lot going to happen in the next 13 months. A lot. I would like to say it’s all going to be good, but nobody knows. I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility that we have a stronger attitude around the economy. I’m not saying we’re going to be down to 6% unemployment, but just the beginning of a psychological change."

Click for the full interview. Or click here to read about how lots of Obama donors appear to be sitting on the sidelines. (More Bill Daley stories.)