President Obama is facing growing questions about his tone and the effectiveness of his leadership after he spent Thursday night mocking his political rivals and accusing them of playing games with the economic stimulus.

In an off-the-cuff moment during his speech to House Democrats at a retreat in Virginia, the president ribbed Republicans, including former rival John McCain, who call the recovery package a “spending bill.”

“So then you get the argument, ‘well, this is not a stimulus bill, this is a spending bill.’ What do you think a stimulus is? That’s the whole point,” Obama said to laughter.

Conservatives are complaining that while Obama held a set of good-faith bipartisan meetings with congressional leaders in January, now he’s reverted to campaign mode in a bid to muscle the more than $900 billion package through Congress. Obama said Friday it is “inexcusable and irresponsible” to delay passage of the recovery plan.

“He reduced himself from being president of all the American people to being the partisan leader of the left,” former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich said of Obama’s Thursday night speech. “The first month of your presidency is not a very good time to give a campaign speech.”

Senate Democratic leaders are scrambling to pick off the bare minimum of votes needed to pull the contentious spending package across the finish line. Republicans and some Democrats are still concerned about the size of the more than $900 billion package and want to pare it down considerably, though Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants a vote by late Friday afternoon.

Obama, who cultivated the image of a post-partisan leader, has been hitting campaign themes in recent days, accusing Republicans in media interviews, an op-ed in The Washington Post and public speeches of reverting to the failed policies of tax cuts. He referenced his own political capital Thursday night and Friday.

“They did not choose more of the same in November,” Obama said Friday. “They sent us here to make change.”

He dismissed what he called “phony arguments and petty politics” Thursday.

“You can nit and you can pick and, you know, that’s the game we all play here. We know how to play that game. What I’m saying is now we can’t afford to play that game. We’ve got to pull together,” Obama said.

But those who are negotiating a compromise measure do not consider their meetings a political ploy.

While Obama points to Friday’s Labor Department report — which shows more than a half-million jobs lost in January — as another warning of the coming “catastrophe” if Congress does not act, many lawmakers think the long-term damage of a bloated spending bill is just as dangerous.

They say the bill, which some have taken to calling the “spendulus,” still contains billions of dollars in wasteful spending. Though moderates are trying to pare it down to close to $800 billion, the joint tax committee just came out with a new price tag putting the current package at about $937 billion. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell continued to raise flags about the size of the bill Friday, saying, “We need to get it right.”

Even public opinion has turned skeptical toward the package.

Obama has scheduled a prime-time press conference to discuss his goals Monday night, and plans to travel next week to Indiana and Florida to sell the package to taxpayers. He and his aides have been working the phones with lawmakers and meeting with Reid over the bill.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Friday the president is merely “energized” on behalf of the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs.

But Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on Thursday accused Obama of being “AWOL” on the legislation. He criticized the president for trying to “scare” the public in his op-ed and media interviews.

House GOP Conference Chairman Mike Pence on Friday issued a written statement saying he was “disappointed” that Obama seemed to have “so quickly abandoned his call for bipartisanship and has resorted to tough political rhetoric” to pass the bill.

Meanwhile Sen. John McCain took his most direct shot at President Barack Obama since the presidential campaign on Friday morning, using a Senate floor speech to criticize the president for mocking the Republican concerns over the massive economic stimulus package.

“The whole point, Mr. President, is to enact tax cuts and spending measures that truly stimulate the economy,” McCain said. “There are billions and tens of billions of dollars in this bill which will have no effect within three, four, five or more years, or ever. Or ever.”

The back and forth is more reminiscent of the sharp attacks the two men exchanged on the campaign trail rather than Obama’s hope of moving past partisanship in Washington. And it comes as McCain has positioned himself to becoming a leading opponent of the Senate Democratic plan, which may cost more than $920 billion if major cuts are not made.

McCain’s criticism comes after a significant period of détente between the two campaign rivals and a direct effort by Obama to woo McCain and get him involved in policy negotiations.

(Source: Politico / Fox News)