So lame: Spending battle a preview of Obama’s next two years

[Geee]

Washington Times:

For President Obama, Thursday marked the unofficial beginning of the lame-duck era.

After being virtually invisible during budget negotiations and ceding almost all power to Democrats on Capitol Hill, the president found himself backed into a political corner, forced to support a $1.1 trillion spending package that he had little hand in crafting and that contains provision

In the end, the president simply had no choice: Having warned of the economic catastrophe that would be a second government shutdown in just over a year, the White House could not be seen as the party responsible for causing it.

 

Thursday’s anticlimactic showdown between Congress and the president is a preview of what the next two years may look like, political analysts say, with Mr. Obama struggling to find the political leverage he needs to keep from becoming an afterthought in all crucial policy debates.

 

“It’ll be a challenge for him to stay relevant over the next two years,” said Darrell West, vice president and director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution.