Obama’s Second Term Plan

[Valin]

The Weekly Standard:

Attack, attack, and attack some more.

FRED BARNES

Jan 21, 2013

 

In 2011, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was instrumental in guiding President Obama away from rejecting a deal with Republicans on increasing the debt limit. Geithner was almost alone, the adult in White House discussions on handling GOP demands. The president and his other advisers had political and ideological misgivings about a deal. Geithner’s concern was bigger. He feared an economic collapse.

 

In February, Obama and Republicans will face a new struggle over the debt limit. The president says he won’t trade spending cuts for an agreement to raise the limit, as he did two years ago at Geithner’s insistence. Indeed, he says he won’t negotiate with Republicans, nor will his aides. He’s stamped his foot and laid down the law. No deal.

 

(Snip)

 

In his new cabinet, the president will have no one with independent stature to pacify him. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, a highly regarded figure in Washington for more than two decades, is being replaced by former Republican senator Chuck Hagel, assuming he wins Senate confirmation. Hagel is a lesser figure. Obama’s choice as CIA director, John Brennan, lacks the credentials of his two predecessors, General David Petraeus and Panetta. And the president’s next chief of staff is sure to lack the Washington standing of his first chief, Rahm Emanuel, now mayor of Chicago.

 

This bodes conflict, not compromise. Republicans who met with Lew in negotiations over the debt limit and fiscal cliff found him to be highly ideological, obstinate, and utterly impervious to their pleas for spending cuts and entitlement reforms. And Obama must have liked Lew’s performance, because he’s promoted him.

 

(Snip)

 

 

 

The next four years are going to be just a barrel of *fun.

 

 

 

*if I am not mistake fun in ancient sanskrit means Texas Death Match