Obama Should Not Accept ‘Lame Duck’ Status

[deutsey]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/188193/obama-should-not-accept-lame-duck-status

Snip

That result is important. But it need not be definitional.

Reagan, Eisenhower and Roosevelt were all written off, decried and dismissed by their critics. Yet they decided that they—not their foes—would write the last chapters of their presidencies.

Presidents have lost the Senate. Presidents have lost the Congress as a whole. And yet, they have governed—sometimes by going to the people and rallying the great mass of Americans to their side, sometimes by outmaneuvering the opposition of Capitol Hill, sometimes by bargaining and bending and compromising.

Obama has plenty of openings to define the last two years of his tenure. The Republicans have not won veto-proof majorities in the House and Senate; the president can still say “no” to them. And on a lot of major issues, that will be the right move. Indeed, for Americans who fret about the prospect of a Republican-controlled Congress, the best response will be to push and prod the president to stand strong against the economic and social compromises that might be demanded conservative Republicans and by corporate Democrats—and that will surely be cheered on by the newspaper editorial pages that seem to think any deal is better than the dreaded gridlock.

Snip

[gordianot]

1. Obama is going to lucky to avoid "dead duck" with gridlock on steroids.

He will become king of the veto as chaos runs amuck just before the try to impeach him.

[atreides1]

2. Right

But the fact is that President Obama isn't like Reagan, Eisenhower, or Roosevelt, is he?

He lacks the tenacity that those three men possessed, he lacks the courage to tell congress to go pound sand when he should, in other words he just isn't in that league!

[deutsey]

4. I'm afraid you're right

I just heard Nichols (who wrote the OP) on Democracy Now and he isn't confident Obama will rise to the challenge, either.

I agree with his call for those of us opposed to the GOP agenda to get really active in pushing back, but even if we manage to build a movement of some sort, it's going to be a huge uphill struggle.

[tularetom]

3. No he shouldn't, but he probably will

He's accepted pretty much everything else without much of a fight.