Nightmare on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: President Obama's Second Term
by COLLEEN MCCAIN NELSON and CAROL E. LEE, Wall Street Journal
On Tuesday, Mr. Obama appeared to taunt Republicans for a lawsuit that House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) has threatened to file to challenge the president's use of executive authority. "Middle-class families can't wait for Republicans in Congress to do stuff," Mr. Obama said during a speech along Washington's waterfront. "So sue me. As long as they're doing nothing, I'm not going to apologize for trying to do something."
WASHINGTON—The
demise of immigration legislation for the year and a Supreme Court
decision creating a religious exception to the health-care law are the
latest setbacks casting clouds over President Barack Obama's agenda.
The
developments leave the administration with limited options. So far, the
White House response has been to continue to press forward without
congressional buy-in on issues such as immigration, while taking a more
aggressive tack in blaming the GOP for Washington's gridlock.On Tuesday, Mr. Obama appeared to taunt Republicans for a lawsuit that House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) has threatened to file to challenge the president's use of executive authority. "Middle-class families can't wait for Republicans in Congress to do stuff," Mr. Obama said during a speech along Washington's waterfront. "So sue me. As long as they're doing nothing, I'm not going to apologize for trying to do something."
Setbacks Cast Cloud Over Obama's Second Term
Supreme Court Decisions, Immigration-Reform Roadblock Hobble White House
July 1, 2014 3:02 p.m. ET
President Obama challenged Republicans in a speech on Tuesday
Bloomberg News
WASHINGTON—The demise of immigration
legislation for the year and a Supreme Court decision creating a
religious exception to the health-care law are the latest setbacks
casting clouds over President
Barack Obama's
agenda.
The developments leave
the administration with limited options. So far, the White House
response has been to continue to press forward without congressional
buy-in on issues such as immigration, while taking a more aggressive
tack in blaming the GOP for Washington's gridlock.
On Tuesday, Mr. Obama appeared to taunt Republicans for a lawsuit that House Speaker
John Boehner
(R., Ohio) has threatened to file to challenge the president's
use of executive authority. "Middle-class families can't wait for
Republicans in Congress to do stuff," Mr. Obama said during a speech
along Washington's waterfront. "So sue me. As long as they're doing
nothing, I'm not going to apologize for trying to do something."
A
spokesman for Mr. Boehner rejected the president's assessment. "House
Republicans have passed over 40 common-sense jobs bills," said Michael
Steel. He said "Democrats, led by President Obama," had blocked help to
Americans.
This week, Mr. Obama conceded that
his top second-term priority—overhauling immigration laws—is dead for
now. And on Monday, the Supreme Court whittled away part of the
president's signature health-care law, allowing closely held companies
to invoke religious objections to opt out of covering contraception for
their employees.
These disappointments
for the White House add to a list of recent domestic and foreign-policy
dilemmas. They make economic improvement and the fate of the Democrats'
quest to hold their Senate majority all the more important to the
success of Mr. Obama's second term.
In
recent days, Mr. Obama moved the U.S. back into Iraq after championing
the end of the unpopular war there. He also committed to new U.S.
involvement in a Syrian civil war he had avoided.
Meantime,
the president's strategy of making policy changes through executive
actions to maneuver past gridlock in Congressfaces new challenges. While
Mr. Boehner threatened to sue, the Supreme Court ruled that his
decision to install some of his blocked nominees to the National Labor
Relations Board was unconstitutional, though it upheld the president's
broader powers to make appointments when Congress is in recess.
On top of this, the White House has
been attempting to address the scandal at the Department of Veterans
Affairs, and Republicans continue to raise concerns about misconduct at
the Internal Revenue Service.
"It's a
buzz saw of challenges that have come flying at the White House all at
once. So now the question is: How do they handle it?" said
Chris Kofinis,
a Democratic strategist. "What is their strategy?…They may have
one, but they've not done a spectacular job communicating it."
The
challenges have harmed the president's popularity. A recent Wall Street
Journal/NBC News poll put Mr. Obama's job-approval rating at 41% and
approval of his handling of foreign policy at a new low, 37%. More than
half said the president wasn't able "to lead the country and get the job
done."
Mr. Obama waved off his low poll
marks, telling ABC that they aren't going to be high "every minute" or
every week, "because there are going to be times where the world is
messy."
Robert Gibbs,
Mr. Obama's former press secretary and longtime adviser, said the
president "has to make the best of what he has, and that is why they've
got to double down on talking every day on setting an economic vision
and a message from where he sees the country moving."
Mr.
Obama has sounded increasingly frustrated, telling a Minnesota crowd on
Friday that Republicans "don't do anything except block me and call me
names." He added, "I'm supposed to be politic about how I say things.
But I'm finding lately that I just want to say what's on my mind."
A
senior administration official said the speech carried the president's
core message for the fall: that the Republicans favor the wealthy and do
nothing in Washington, at the expense of the middle class.
Don
Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R.,
Ky.), said the White House has shifted into "blame mode" instead of
working to get things done. "It doesn't give you a lot of hope and
optimism for completing big things when his answer to problems is to
attack everyone else," he said.
Mr.
Kofinis, the Democratic strategist, who previously served as chief of
staff to Sen.
Joe Manchin
(D., W.Va), said Mr. Obama's attacks on Republicans likely will
appeal to Democrats but do little to solve problems or attract support
from centrist voters.
The White House
needs to be decisive instead of reacting to events, Mr. Kofinis said.
"The president has significant power to say this is what we're going to
do and then do it," he said.
Dan Pfeiffer,
a senior adviser to Mr. Obama, said: "Our credo is manage the things you can't control and maximize the things you can.''
White
House officials have suggested that a GOP lawsuit against Mr. Obama's
use of executive actions would be a misstep that would energize
Democrats in November.
"Every time the
Republicans attack the president for his executive actions, they are
reminding the American people that unlike congressional Republicans, he
is actually doing something to help them," Mr. Pfeiffer said.
The
White House pushed back against suggestions it has struggled to make
progress in the second term, pointing to enrollment in insurance plans
through the health law and Mr. Obama's efforts to tackle climate change.
Write to Colleen McCain Nelson at colleen.nelson@wsj.com and Carol E. Lee at carol.lee@wsj.com
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