US turns away from Obama
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The Australian |
November 06, 2014 12:00AM
THE Democratic Party has paid a heavy price for the perception of weak leadership and indecisiveness that has overtaken Barack Obama’s presidency. Two years ago, when he won a second term, there seemed little likelihood he would become a political millstone. But that, as the mid-term US congressional election showed, is what has happened, with the Democrats losing control of the Senate to the Republican Party.
Mr Obama will not be the first president faced with a hostile congress. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush spent their last two years with their oppositions controlling both chambers. But the rebuff administered to Mr Obama was significant. It was encapsulated in Arkansas, where the Republicans picked up a new Senate seat. The state has not returned two Republican senators for 135 years. When Bill Clinton was governor and in the White House it was virtually a one-party Democratic state. Now, with much of the south, it has turned on Mr Obama.
Voters’ disenchantment is hardly surprising. Post-GFC economic recovery in the US has been weak and uneven. The botched rollout of Obamacare and mismanagement of welfare reform, the hospital treatment of war veterans, immigration and even the haphazard handling of the Ebola crisis have added to anger about a rudderless administration.
In foreign policy, renegade intelligence defector Edward Snowden’s disclosure of secrets raised doubts about the government’s ability to handle crises. Questions also have been mounting about Mr Obama’s inability to fulfil America’s leadership role as the global superpower. Vladimir Putin outplayed him over Syria and Ukraine. The fact Islamic terrorists are marauding through Syria and Iraq owes much to the President’s premature withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq and his failure to make good on the red lines he tried to impose on the Assad regime.
If Mr Obama is to avoid being the proverbial lame duck for the next two years — potentially with dire consequences — he must work with the Republicans. Internationally, he must show strength and assert US leadership and not seek excuses to avoid doing so.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/editorials/us-turns-away-from-obama/story-e6frg71x-1227114007293?nk=a5a624c32c6c7e517e5e120b5b33831f
