◼ This week he was reduced to giving a news conference in which he said he's got juice, reports of his death are greatly exaggerated. It was bad. - Peggy Noonan/Wall St. Journal
There's no happy warrior in there, no joy of the battle, just acceptance of what he wearily sees as the landscape. He'd seem hapless if he weren't so verbally able.
So, the president is stuck. But it's too early to write him off as a lame duck because history has a way of intervening. A domestic or international crisis that is well-handled, or a Supreme Court appointment, can make a president relevant. There are 44 months left to Mr. Obama's presidency. He's not a lame duck, he's just lame.
◼ Bottoms Up, Lame Duck - Maureen Dowd/New York Times
The president called a press conference to mark the first 100 days of his second term, and he quickly ended up playing defense, dwelling on how hemmed in he feels.
ABC News’s Jonathan Karl asked Obama if he was already out of “juice” to pass his agenda, citing the president’s inability to get a watered-down gun bill passed in the Senate, Congress swatting away Obama on the sequester cuts, and the recent passage of a cybersecurity bill in the House with 92 Democrats on board, despite a veto threat from the White House.
◼ Obama: The fall - Charles Krauthammer/Washington Post
From king of the world to dead in the water in six months. Quite a ride.
