Obama Dodges Questions About Awfulness of 2013

Gives worthless press conference before jetting off to Hawaii

President Obama declined to say whether 2013 had been the worst year of his tenure during a White House news conference Friday.

"I gotta tell you, that's not how I think about it," Obama said in response to a question on the point from The Associated Press. The questioner noted the lack of progress on his domestic agenda, the fiasco of the healthcare reform rollout and his falling approval ratings.

Just hours before he took the podium, a new CNN/ORC poll showed his approval rating at just 41 percent. That figure was unchanged from the previous month, and is the lowest ever level for Obama in the poll.

But the president said that he would never have run for president had he been concerned about poll ratings, which he noted have swung wildly throughout his time in office.