Posted on 09/02/2014 6:35:48 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
A listless summer is the clearest sign that Obama has lost the clout needed to move his agenda.
Just in time for the season's final barbecue, President Obama last week backed off his promise (threat?) to "do something" about immigration reform by the end of the summer if Congress failed to send him a bill addressing the issue. He needs more time, we're told.
It's a dumb and uneventful conclusion to a dumb, uneventful summer in Washington politics. Obama's promise to rewrite America's immigration law through a mixture of executive fiat and a kind of officious neglect may have been calculated to incite a GOP freakout, a summer of polarizing impeachment rage, or a self-defeating government shutdown. Untrue to form, the GOP somehow missed the chance to score an own-goal ahead of midterm elections.
During the health-care debate of his first term, Obama was able to command kamikaze-like loyalty among Democratic legislators who knew that their support of the Affordable Care Act could cost them their seat in the Capitol. Going into the last midterm election of his presidency, Obama commands none of that loyalty, certainly not on immigration.
Instead, it seems the president is going to bow to the wishes of vulnerable Democrats running for election, "who have expressed opposition to Obama's plans to act unilaterally on the hot-button issue," according to the Los Angeles Times.
So Obama can't get the GOP to self-destruct or Democrats to fall in line. And he can't get Democrats to fall enough in line behind an executive solution to make the GOP self-destruct. In other words, the Obama presidency is basically over. Hope it was good for you, too.
The Obama agenda is spent. With the balance of power unlikely to tip in a Democratic direction in the fall, he's unlikely to put more big scores on the board in the final two years of his presidency.
Whatever revisions it faces in the coming years, the massive reform of the health-care system in his first term is probably the most significant alteration of the American state by a Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society." His drawdown in Iraq was necessary no matter how unhappy that country has been ever since our invasion. And while his foreign policy has generally left chaos and disorder behind it — see: Libya, Egypt — it's an obvious improvement on his predecessor's.
There's not much left to do other than to find a few more bric-a-brac "legacy achievements." Perhaps there is a nonbinding climate change document he can pretend to lead. He can put together another blue-ribbon commission on entitlement reform, perhaps. Another beer summit could happen, when another incident reminds America that it still hasn't solved or addressed racial inequities. If Obama can't be a leader of the political culture, he can be a symbol of it.
Or Obama can take a page from previous lame-duck Democratic presidents. Like Clinton and Carter, Obama could try to create peace in the Middle East by getting the media and his obedient inner circle to repeat over and over again that Obama is "evenhanded" and an "honest broker" in the region, and he's "really putting it all on the line." Stop laughing.
American presidencies have clichéd, predictable endings. But rarely entertaining or happy ones. Barring an economy-tanking incident, or an invasion of the homeland, we have a whole lot of not much to look forward to until Jan. 20, 2017.
Communisms doesn't seem so radical anymore.
Zombie presidency.
Nothing left to do but fund-raise, golf, and plan the three branches of the Baraq Hussein Obama Presidential Library and Choom Gang Museum.
Oh and start sending out solicitations for the best paying POTUS pardons in history.
He needs more time, we’re told.
wait... does this mean he actually told the truth,,..?
no he wasnt forthright...but he may have been honest is that there IS a good deal of TIME between now and the November election
It aint over til he and Michele are out of the White House—It can’t happen soon enough.
I think he is the most successful President in US history in regards to his agenda. He has accomplished almost everything he set out to do. Destroy or harm the US in almost every single area while empowering and spreading radical Islam. That’s why he celebrates so much. Terrorists never had it so good under this guy that’s why I’m wondering if these beheading videos are BS. Just why are they edited like that? Why were they immediately taken down off the net by government forces actually shutting down entire websites and threatening private website owners? I think this is all BS in preparation for something bigger. While the world looks at ISIS something comes in through the back door.
INVASION OF THE HOMELAND? Hello????
Is this guy for real?
Its going to take a long time to repair the damage and someone with the stones to go medieval on pretty much every federal agency and bureaucracy out there.
I can't believe this idiot actually wrote this. In what universe is the current condition of either Egypt or Libya "improved" over the Bush years. How? This is bizarre.
Did I miss Bathhouse Barry and Val Jal doing the perp walk out the front gate of 1600 Penn Ave?
“And while his foreign policy has generally left chaos and disorder behind it — see: Libya, Egypt — it’s an obvious improvement on his predecessor’s.”
I’d like to see the author’s back up for this assertion. Here’s my scorecard:
1. The nations that liked Bush (UK, Australia, Eastern Europe, India, Japan, some ASEAN countries, the secular Arab states, sort of Israel) have been consciously or unconsciously blown off by Obama and dislike him and us now.
2. The nations who didn’t really like Bush but respected/feared him (Central Asian nations, much of Africa and Latin America) now have contempt for the US.
3. The nations that hated Bush (France, Germany, some other Western Euros) may say they like Obama better, but deep down they don’t trust him and don’t think they can count on the US any more.
4. The nations that hated not only Bush but the very idea of the US (Iran, Cuba, North Korea, China) are openly dismissive of the US, and with the exception of Cuba all of them are more militarily potent and threatening now than they were in 2008.
5. The “reset” with Russia, which Obama touted highly, is a bloody shambles.
Just how can anyone credibly claim that Obama’s foreign policy is an obvious improvement???
Lucky Ubama.
No more responsibility, still all the perks and more time to spend on the golf course.
His “agenda” has nothing to do with Congress. His “agenda” is to nuke U.S. cities, kill the electric grid, murder 90% of Americans, etc.
“Obama” can “move his agenda” without Congress.
summer isn’t over till sept 22.
Obama has no domestic opposition and he’s simpatico with the foreign opposition. This is the state of our nation.
Now, let’s go back to the nude pictures of celebrities who I never heard of before.
” it’s an obvious improvement on his predecessor’s.”
Didn’t you know? It’s in all their contracts. They just HAVE to say it. Whether they believe it or not.
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