Obama Details Battle Lines in Budget Plan

President Obama's News Conference: In his first news conference since June, President Obama faced questions on David H. Petraeus, Libya and taxes.

WASHINGTON — President Obama, riding the winds of re-election, signaled Wednesday that he was prepared to battle with Republicans over budget negotiations and his national security team's handling of the deadly attack on an American mission in Libya.

Displaying a mix of resolve and restraint, Mr. Obama flatly rejected any budget deal that did not raise tax rates on income above $250,000 a year, even if it meant driving the economy into a recession. But he did not rule out a compromise that could leave the top tax rates lower than their levels during the Clinton administration, presumably combined with a restriction on some tax breaks for top earners.

For a president fresh off a hard-fought victory, Mr. Obama projected little of the triumphalism of other newly re-elected leaders like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, who boasted in 2004 that he had amassed political capital and planned "to spend it."

Mr. Obama instead cloaked his tough stance in the language of compromise, saying he was "familiar with all the literature about presidential overreach in second terms," and that his re-election was not a mandate to ram his proposals through Congress without any concessions.

In his first formal news conference in eight months, which was meant to position Mr. Obama for the coming fiscal battles but ended up including a C.I.A. scandal and a vitriolic fight over who is to blame for the attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, the president saved his most fiery words to defend his ambassador to the United Nations, Susan E. Rice. Ms. Rice, a candidate for secretary of state, has come under withering attack from Senator John McCain and other Republicans for suggesting that the siege in Benghazi that killed four Americans was a spontaneous protest rather than a premeditated terrorist attack.

"For them to go after the U.N. ambassador, who had nothing to do with Benghazi and was simply making a presentation based on the intelligence that she had received, and to besmirch her reputation, is outrageous," Mr. Obama said, his eyes flashing with anger.

Describing Ms. Rice's conduct as "exemplary," he warned that her critics have "got a problem with me." Almost daring them to a confirmation battle, he vowed to nominate Ms. Rice if he determined that she was the right person for secretary of state.

Mr. Obama's remarks drew an equally angry response from Senators McCain and Lindsey Graham. In a statement issued after the news conference, Mr. Graham reiterated that he would oppose "anyone who is up to their eyeballs in the Benghazi debacle."

By contrast, the president struck an almost elegiac tone in discussing the sex scandal that forced the resignation of David H. Petraeus as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. Petraeus, he said, told him that he did not meet his own standards for holding the job.

But, Mr. Obama added, "We are safer because of the work Dave Petraeus has done," voicing hope that the scandal would end up as a "single side note on what has otherwise been an extraordinary career."

Mr. Obama was cautious in responding to questions about whether he should have been told earlier about the investigation into the relationship between Mr. Petraeus and his biographer, Paula Broadwell, with the president saying that he would leave it to the F.B.I. to explain its "protocols." But while he offered no criticism of the investigation, he appeared to leave himself room to do so in the future, should new information emerge.

"I am withholding judgment with respect to how the entire process surrounding General Petraeus came up," he said.

In laying out his position on the budget, Mr. Obama emphasized that debate over taxes had been central to the election he just won and reprised many of the themes he had struck on the campaign trail. The president urged Republicans to go along with his proposal to extend the Bush-era tax cuts on all personal income up to $250,000 a year, noting that people who made more than that amount would also benefit from such an extension.

"But when it comes to the top 2 percent, what I'm not going to do is extend further a tax cut for folks who don't need it, which would cost close to a trillion dollars," Mr. Obama said.

Annie Lowrey and Jennifer Steinhauer contributed reporting.

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