In perhaps his touchiest press conference yet, President Obama reiterated his opposition to the extension of current tax rates on top-earners, while defending a deal he brokered with Republicans that would do just that.

A prickly Obama, at times raising his voice, called Senate Republicans “hostage-takers” and “bomb-throwers” for opposing his agenda, and said critics on the Left who portray him as weak on core issues are “sanctimonious.”

Obama maintained that while he remains “as opposed to the high-income tax cuts today as I was four years ago,” he knows that he “can’t win in the Senate.”

“I have not been able to budge [Republicans],” Obama said. “I haven’t persuaded Mitch McConnell and I haven’t persuaded John Boehner.”

“If this were just a matter of being able to persuade the American people to my side, then I would just stick to my guns,” he said, but added that “this isn’t an abstract debate. This is real money, for real people.”

Obama had harsh words for the same congressional Republicans with whom he brokered the tax deal, saying that cuts for the rich are the GOP’s “holy grail” and “central economic doctrine.” Echoing comments by Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), Obama blamed Republicans for holding middle-class tax cuts “hostage,” and said it was “tempting not to negotiate with hostage-takers.”

But while he acknowledged the necessity of striking a bargain this time around, he took pains to argue that the next two years will be different.

“For the last two years Republicans have had the benefit of watching us take all these emergency actions . . . watching us preside over a $1.3 trillion deficit we inherited. . . . Well in the next two years they are going to have to show me what they can do,” he said.

“I will be happy to see the Republicans test whether I am itching for a fight on a whole range of issues. I suspect they will find I am.”

The martial language directed at the GOP notwithstanding, Obama reserved perhaps his harshest criticism for critics on the professional Left. He complained about the New York Times giving higher placement to the administration’s failures than its successes, and said “purists” on the Left had set unattainable standards for success.

“This is the public option debate all over again,” Obama said of leftward criticism of the tax deal. “So I pass a signature piece of legislation . . . something Democrats have been fighting for for a hundred years,” but since it lacked a “public option” it was seen by liberals and progressives as “a sign of weakness.”

“If that is the standard . . . then let’s face it, we will never get anything done,” Obama said. “Sanctimonious” progressives “will have the satisfaction of having a purist position and no victories for the American people.”

“That can’t be the measure of what it means to be a Democrat. This is a big, diverse country,” Obama added, raising his voice. “Not everybody agrees with us. . . . The New York Times editorial page does not permeate across America.”