Pragmatism vs. the chance to make real change
Obama Facing Critical Choice After Shooting
By PETER BAKER, NYT
WASHINGTON — For President Obama, the massacre of schoolchildren in Connecticut has upended standard political calculations and has presented a choice that goes to the heart of his approach to governance, not just on guns but also on issues like climate change, immigration and even taxes.
Should he invest his energy and the stature he won with his re-election last month in a fight he may believe in but is not sure he can actually win? And with his last election now behind him, is he willing or even able to shift the dynamics in Washington to make such fights winnable?
To his core supporters, this is a moment that will define what a second-term Obama presidency will look like — whether it will be closer to the soaring aspirations that set liberal hearts aflutter in 2008 or more like the back-room deal making that characterized the four years that followed. Advocates on the left have long lamented that Mr. Obama was too quick to compromise, even as those on the right see him as a champion of a radical agenda.
From his point of view, Mr. Obama has been pragmatic, making cleareyed if cold assessments about when the votes were there and when they were not. Mr. Obama does not accept the notion that he has not pursued goals that seemed hard to achieve, most notably the historic health care program he pushed through. The economic crisis invariably forced other priorities onto the shelf.
(More here.)
WASHINGTON — For President Obama, the massacre of schoolchildren in Connecticut has upended standard political calculations and has presented a choice that goes to the heart of his approach to governance, not just on guns but also on issues like climate change, immigration and even taxes.
Should he invest his energy and the stature he won with his re-election last month in a fight he may believe in but is not sure he can actually win? And with his last election now behind him, is he willing or even able to shift the dynamics in Washington to make such fights winnable?
To his core supporters, this is a moment that will define what a second-term Obama presidency will look like — whether it will be closer to the soaring aspirations that set liberal hearts aflutter in 2008 or more like the back-room deal making that characterized the four years that followed. Advocates on the left have long lamented that Mr. Obama was too quick to compromise, even as those on the right see him as a champion of a radical agenda.
From his point of view, Mr. Obama has been pragmatic, making cleareyed if cold assessments about when the votes were there and when they were not. Mr. Obama does not accept the notion that he has not pursued goals that seemed hard to achieve, most notably the historic health care program he pushed through. The economic crisis invariably forced other priorities onto the shelf.
(More here.)
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