Front-page WaPo 'news'. Includes photo gallery, with the first one looking vaguely like a Kenyan White House interior.Five months after his resounding reelection victory
His ability to secure the three high-profile legislative items now confronting Congress -- gun-control measures, reform of the immigration system and his long-term budget priorities -- is likely to determine his domestic legacy.
These items seem to be in reverse priority order, to me. Anybody else?
Obama's plan now is to ensure that as much of his politically challenging agenda as possible is enacted, after months of effort to frame the policies for the American public and, perhaps more important, for the House and Senate.
But senior administration officials acknowledge that only immigration legislation has a chance of resembling Obama's ideal bill once it emerges from the Democratic-run Senate and the Republican-controlled House. On his other major initiatives, they say Obama would settle for less than he claims he wants, a sign that he remains pragmatic in the face of partisan opposition that continues to limit his ambitions.
Obama pragmatic? Now that would be news!
"I have the same worry about all of these issues, and it's the Republican House," said Dan Pfeiffer, an Obama senior adviser.
The House, elected by the rest of the Country, so somehow -- irrelevant.
Obama outlined a broad progressive agenda in his second inaugural address, and he has spoken frequently about the validation that he believes the public gave his plans by reelecting him last year. But second-term presidents traditionally have less than two years to secure a legislative agenda before lame-duck status sets in, and Obama already has seen his popular support shrink in recent months from its post-election highs.
The election also did not change the basic political dynamic in Washington: a Democratic president in conflict with congressional Republicans, only some of whom don't
he strategy has led Obama to alternately court Senate Republicans -- as he did last week in his second such dinner with a dozen of them -- and to scold them before outside-the-Beltway audiences, as he did this month in denouncing GOP threats to block gun-control legislation. Advisers say he does so to keep the political momentum alive in Washington for measures with strong public support outside the capital.
Sorry, I'm sure I could keep fisking - there are two more pages - but my eyes are burning and my head hurts. I've got to build up my stamina again!
