White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley says the first three years of President Barack Obama's administration have been "brutal" and "ungodly."

In an interview with POLITICO's Roger Simon, Daley said that given the magnitude of the crisis Obama came into office with and all that he has done, “He [Obama] doesn’t know why he’s as high as 44 percent.”

Simon writes that the line may have been intended as humor, but in reality it is anything but.

“It’s been a brutal three years,” Daley adds. “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.”

It's an unusual confession from a White House desperate to prove that it has the heft to do anything, and struggling to convince voters to give Obama another shot at governing.

On their confidence level next year, Daley is not optimistic:

“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,” Daley told Simon. “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 percent unemployment, but just the beginning of a psychological change. Right now, that is the biggest thing. What are the factors that [will create] that? Who knows? You can just feel this electorate is very volatile. So strap yourself in.

Read the full interview at POLITICO >