Writing for RCP, Alexis Simendinger says the President’s “second term agenda [is] still on track.” We’re going to have to take this item one at a time in sort of a mini-fisking. Because we’re mean like that. And because, dear Lord, does Simendinger deserve it. Let’s begin.
On international policy, Obama recalibrated his earlier “red line” rhetoric that use of chemical weapons or the movement of chemical stockpiles in Syria would prompt an escalation in U.S. involvement in the 2-year-old civil war there.
One does not “recalibrate” a red line. Or else it isn’t a red line, it’s a pink fuzzy area, like a Hello Kitty body pillow. (I don’t actually know if such a thing exists, nor do I want to.) What the President has done is retreat on Syria, which is pretty much the exact opposite of “on track.”
The president also suggested the Boston bombings appeared to be the work of “self-radicalized” individuals living in the United States and working alone, not in collaboration with a terrorist organization. “We want to leave no stone unturned,” he explained, when asked about the U.S. intelligence review under way.
Just this morning, three more people were arrested in connection with the Second Boston Massacre, and it’s been revealed that the Tsarnaevs were deeply immeshed enough with fellow jihadis that they’d caught the eye of the Russian and the Saudi governments. That’s an awful lot of self-radicalized lone wolves all working alone together locally around the world.
“I feel confident that the bipartisan work that’s been done on immigration reform will result in a bill that passes the Senate and passes the House and gets on my desk. And that’s going to be a historic achievement,” he said.
One of the Senate bill’s authors, Marco Rubio, says the bill “can’t pass the House.”
Having warned that the sequester was bad policy that would unsettle many Americans who rely on federal services and support, Obama sought credit Tuesday for being the siren, and chafed that he has nevertheless become a target, especially among lawmakers who lament the impact just weeks after celebrating $86 billion in overall spending reductions over a span of seven months.
Even Ezra “Journ-O-List” Klein says the President and the Democrats have lost on the Sequester. American airline passengers certainly won, despite Teh Won’s best efforts to inconvenience us into acquiescence.
The rest of Simendinger’s stunningly awful piece is devoted to Obama’s inability to get Congress to do anything he wants on Gitmo, fixing the massive ObamaCare fiasco, or enacting his “smart cuts” or whatever in place of the sequester.
But other than being derailed on every issue he’s pursuing, the President’s second term agenda is totally on track.
Totally.
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