Quote:
Originally Posted by Beef
What's more important to the WH, the midterms or this president's landmark legislation, his only true legacy? Gruber was already "outed" in OCT. and the WH knew it was going to be an issue.
|
Despite the rancorous contemporaneous political debates over the current president's "legacy," it will not be determined for decades, and that determination will be made by historians and political scientists.
During the interval, the current president defined his priorities in
his press conference following last month's midterms. By my reading of his statement and his responses to questions from the Fourth Estate, his priority remains the continued rehabilitation of the nation's economy.
IRT the Affordable Care Act, he again affirmed his willingness to participate in its reform but not its repeal. IMO, the president does not believe the GOP will be able to overturn the law. I don't believe that his confidence is misplaced. The man is an idiot. The legislation is deeply flawed. Yet, his opposition cannot get out of its own way and find ways to outmaneuver him. Their unwillingness to help reform the law is going to do more harm than good as we approach the 2016 election.
MOO, I think the initial response to the select committee's findings is excessively partisan and therefore ill considered. I believe that this partisanship is going to undermine the incoming majority's ability to restore balance between the executive and legislative branches of the federal government.
I continue to believe that the focus should be on institutional politics. The GOP would be more prudent politically and smarter to use the committee's findings as part of a broader conversation over the proper role of the CIA in matters of national security, the president's war powers, and the "ends justify the means" approach to GWOT. This approach would allow the GOP to exploit fractures within the Democratic Party as its rank and file membership continue to come (belatedly) to the realization that the current president is not a liberal.
IRT the defense of the CIA's methods offered in some posts in this thread, I would point out that those methods included the deception of elected politicians and appointed officials during Bush the Younger's presidency. Examples of this pattern of deception can be found in the executive's footnotes as well as the principal text. Is that really the type of government you want to have?