Reagan never had a Republican House to work with. And yes, the Democrats had both houses in the last two of the Reagan years, and most of the work of his Presidency was done by then.

But Obama is less than four months into his second term, and already he is crippled.

Read the second article of impeachment that was drawn up against Nixon after Watergate. It sounds very familiar.

Obama inherited a situation much worse than Reagan and frankly is not as good a President that Reagan was. I'm rational enough to understand that.

Yes, Obama is crippled, but the way Congress is, he always was and always will be, as will every coming President until Congress can get past party lines and start voting based on what they actually believe. Till then, every one of them is fucked just as badly.

If Obama is directly involved in the way that Nixon was, I'll expect his resignation. To just assume that he is simply because of party lines (if this weren't the case, you'd have left out the illegal arms sales; even Reagan, otherwise known in the Republican faction as God, did that) is absurd.

No.

Next question!

Obama had to spend his first term trying to fix the mess the Republicans left the country in.

Congress don't vote by what they actually believe. They don't even vote along party lines. They vote the way the men with the money tell them to vote.

I think the next president will do well to avoid some of Obama's bigger blunders with congress. For example, the first time you meet with the opposition, maybe don't laugh in their faces and tell them "you have to sit in the back" or whatever that inane remark was. And maybe don't wait as long as 4 years to invite senate opposition leaders over for dinner. Yes, Washington is a mess, but no, it's not impossible to get things done if you're willing to build relationships. Hopefully the next president will have people skills and some legislative background.

I quite honestly see a lot of this as wishful thinking on the part of conservatives--

They want this to be Watergate, and this isn't even a Lewinsky-gate-level issue.

Two hours I commute with my father, to and from Northridge--

For the full two hours, nearly, FOX News is fixated on when Obama did and didn't use the words "terror" and "terrorism."

I must ask--

Even if you attach some sort of special quality to calling something a terrorist attack vs. "just" an attack...is it REALLY so important as to rake a President over the coals about it?

Now, don't get me wrong--that's the GOP's job. That's the best play in their playbook right now, after all. And yes, the Democrats would be doing the same thing if the situation were reversed. This is just politics.

But I ask YOU, as a reader and not as a player in big-party-politics...

Why does FOX News need to devote THAT much time to it?
Is it really that big an issue for you?
If so...why? Why, when we have so many more issues, is this the one you focus on?

As for the claims he's "crippled"--I laugh at that.

Four months into a second term...so much could happen in the intervening time--

How quickly do the political tables turn, after all?

All you'd need is for one major crisis in America (and we arguably have plenty ongoing) or for a Republican to have a pretty bad PR day (and gee, what's the track record of Congressmen, Democratic or Republican, having an embarrassingly-bad PR day that grabs media attention for at least a week?) and the tables could turn entirely.

FOX News badly wants this to be Obamagate, a Nixon-level thing...

And, again, they have viewers to satisfy and ratings to feed, so I can't and don't blame them for pandering to that and, in their "fair and balanced" round-table discussion, invite someone from The Weekly Standard, The Daily Beast, and The Wall Street Journal, three rather conservative publications, with no liberal equivalent at the table in sight...

There's a market for partisanship in this country right now, and at the end of the day they're a business, and trying to skewer this into a Watergate analogue when, at best, you have an Iran Contra Affair-level incident (and if Reagan can deflect that, Obama can, Reagan was and Obama is charismatic and liked enough to wrangle that)...

But please--

The average, everyday reader here? Again, really? WHY is this your main concern?

WHY s this what you gravitate towards...other than the fact that you dislike Obama?

If that's it, just say it, and be as honest as you claim you wish Obama had been.

You aren't troubled by the use of the IRS as a bludgeon against political opponents? You are not troubled by the Dept. of Justice spying on a news organization?

This is a serious abuse of power, and stuff that Average Joe voter can understand.

If there was a serious crisis in the next year, how many on the Right would say that Obama was manufacturing a crisis to rescue his standing? Could you blame them? As Jon Stewart noted tonight on the Daily Show, the Obama administration has just destroyed all their credibility. Nobody on the Right will believe another word this administration says.

And there are Democrats who have stated today they are deeply troubled by the IRS politicization--they have long enough memories to know that they crucified Nixon over that very thing. (As I said, read the second article of impeachment for Nixon.)

This is serious stuff. I know that most people are shrugging their shoulders, and saying "it's the same old thing. Washington behaving badly." But it MATTERS, dammit.

The thing about presidencies is that declaring them over is usually done quicker than actually ending them. Yes, this week is horrible (both IRS and AP stories are shocking), but I'm sure the West Wing will be able to regroups. Yes, inquiries will start. Heads will roll. But I'm sure there are lower level heads to roll before we start talking about Obama's.

What struck me ever since the election is that Obama never declared a second term agenda. The result is that he now does not have any mandate that he can claim from his (impressive) victory. See the gun debate for that. I agree he has made himself a lame duck - for now.

I thought this POLITICO article was spot-on, with a great quote too: "Every second term I come to wonder a little why Presidents are so unambivalently eager for second terms".

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/barack-obama-benghazi-irs-libya-syria-91242.html#ixzz2TFcH1ta8

What a fucking joke. Really dipplayer, you should step away from Fox News and join us in the real world. I promise, the liberals don't bite. Much.

I never watch Fox News. I can think all by myself.

Funny how obiwanobiwan didn't even mention the IRS or AP scandals, which are way more troubling than whatever may have happened with Benghazi. I highly doubt you wouldn't have written a tome on here about how Bush needs to be impeached if in 2005 we found out the IRS was targeting groups with "progressive" in their names or monitoring journalists. Benghazi is being used for political means, but for fuck's sake these other two are honest-to-goodness Washington scandals that deserve all the attention they get.

The odds of Obama resigning or being impeached are so miniscule that we shouldn't waste our time considering them. However, all three of these are real scandals that are extremely damaging to his presidency and will be ulcers sapping the administration's strength indefinitely. Much of their energy will have to be spent on dealing with Benghazi, the IRS sandal, and the AP monitoring. That means much fewer resources for the White House to spend on getting the president's agenda enacted.

There's no reason to believe, based on the evidence we have now, that Obama was directly involved with any of these abuses. But that hardly matters. There was obvious wrongdoing here, and heads will have to roll at three (three!) different government agencies. The administration cannot avoid taking a huge hit over that and they'll deserve it. Barring a cartoonishly implausible revelation, Obama will serve out his term. But if these two new scandals are as bad as they sound he won't be able to get much done.

I've often wondered if the American political system is better than the Dutch (or perhaps "European" one) in the sense that there is an extreme amount of political appointments in the US whenever there's a new administration.In Holland, essentially no civil servants are being replaced (giving civil servants a lot of control over their secretaries...) I wonder which one works better. (And I wonder if, for example, American appointments were less political, this IRS thing would have happened and if ours were more political, it would still take 10 years to finish a medium sized museum to finish)

lmao you don't know what lame duck means do you

lame duck is great when you have the right orange sauce

What I love about the American media is that it is still dominated by white people, which is so mis-representative (made up word) of the USA nowadays.
The USA is the most democratic/stable ethnic melting pot in the World, countries like Iraq are dominated by Muslims yet they still manage to split themselves into 2 groups and blow each other up.
If you keep the 'Dream' simple everyone can buy into it no matter where you hail from. 'I LOVE AMERICA'

1. Let's be a bit easier with the term "scandal" shall we (I mean, if terms matter so much that Republicans are up in arms over whether or not the President of the United States called something a terrorist attack after it happened or RIGHT after it happened...)

The AP thing is really not a scandal yet. It , time isn't of that sort of magnitude at all. If it weren't for the other two stories floating about and the fact we humans seem to like things going in threes, it wouldn't be a big news story (at least not yet, again, time will tell.)

Then we have Benghazi, which I'e already touched on...

And then

2. The IRS thing. You don't know who's involved and who isn't. At all. In any capacity. You immediately assume it goes all the way to Obama...because you dislike Obama, there's no reason why it HAD to go to the top, or even the top of the IRS itself.

3. "This is a serious abuse of power, and stuff that Average Joe voter can understand."

This is a use of power which time will tell whether or not it was an abuse of Obama's power or someone else's...

...but Average Joe voter jumps the gun (while swearing Obama will never take his away? OK, gun ownership joke, I kid, I kid...sort of) and assumes it all ties to the President in a massive conspiracy cover-up because WOW! That sounds IMPORTANT! And DRAMATIC!

Why, it's almost like something you'd see out of a TV or Movie written for Average Joe voter who has no concept of just how complex the federal government is layered and sees Obama as either a good guy or a fascist socialist gun-hating damn-dirty-liberal King George III tyrant who must-must-must b deposed and oh my goodness! here's their chance!

Please.

Obama is an intelligent man, surrounded by intelligent people. Investigating the Tea Party is a bad move. These people are an extremist wing of the Republican Party with air heads like Sarah Palin in charge. They give a bad name to reasonable conservatives and Obama, if anything, should support these people in any way he can, much like President François Mitterand of France supported the Front National. Any enemy of his enemy should be his friend.

Barack Obama is not involved in the IRS scandal :(

What's more (and, again, Democrats did the same thing with Bush, it's just part of the game) this is being politicized FAR more than is actually warranted.

Unless this is a Watergate-style thing (and I maintain none of the three even come close to that, especially at this stage) then this is simply the Right Wing catching onto some bad fumbles by the Obama administration and trying to turn them into touchdowns to break the game open in their favor, as it were, so they can sit on the ball and run out the next three years of Obama's presidency.

Again, I don't blame the GOP for doing that--it's a fair tactic.

By the same token, as someone with a relatively-working brain (I say relatively-working, it's finals week, so I'm sort of sleeping in snatches here and there or conking out and missing out on studying for something all night) it irritates me when it's 1. So transparently partisan, 2. Nothing I think is this newsworthy at all (again, I don't think it's a big deal when he used the word "terrorism" or not, it's a word, for goodness' sake, who really cares except those who are petty enough to quibble over terms and those just looking for a fight, a "terrorist attack" by any other name still blows people up, yes? And again, I see no reason to immediately assume Obama is behind the other two and, again, people who do assume that, well, take a WebDip poll alone and you'll find it's mainly the folks here who didn't like Obama to begin with, when you hate a leader you tend to be able to see him doing a lot-lot more incriminating things, even if there isn't any good evidence for it...yet) and 3. Clogging up the news cycle when there are far more important things to be discussing.

Benghazi goes at least as high as the Secretary of State, Clinton. The AP wiretapping probably goes as high as Holder, the AG. The IRS crime (which it is) was known to IRS chiefs in Washington last year. So Obama probably has plausible deniability. But heads need to roll at three agencies, and while Clinton is already gone, Holder needs to be.

Benghazi is not just about words. It's about 1) being unprepared for an attack (incompetence), 2) Not sending reinforcements when the attack was under way (incompetence or callousness), and 3) falsely blaming it on a video, locking up the guy who made the video, and stonewalling Congress (deception and abuse of power)

It is nice to see America in the middle of a political scandal of sorts and Europe pretty much ignoring it for a change :).

Scandal (real or imagined) aside, how is Obama actually doing? Can anyone give a consise list of his achievements thus far? It's very easy over here to get the impression he hasn't really done anything.

I think almost closing Gitmo prison is among the first and foremost.

"Benghazi is not just about words. It's about 1) being unprepared for an attack (incompetence),"

Aaaaaand you're playing Monday Morning Armchair Quarterback, er, General, are you?

Very, very easy to say "Oh, you stupid President you, you should've handled that better, and been more prepared--*I* could have done a better job!"

Which, again, is Reason #2,409,879 FOX News is making me sick right now:

Ah, the legion of news anchors...all of whom seem to think they could all do better despite exactly none of them ever having remotely been in that position before...

On a related note, I'm enraged that Colin Kaepernick didn't complete one of those passes for a TD to win the Super Bowl--why, even I could have done it! ...Of course, my football experience is limited to school yard 5 on 5's when I was in grade school, but hey, if the FOX All-Stars are more qualified to make military and security decisions than Obama, I'm more than qualified to be the next QB of the San Francisco 49ers, right?

"2) Not sending reinforcements when the attack was under way (incompetence or callousness),"

Mh-hm...callousness...right...Obama just sat there and said "eh, let 'em die..."

Sure.

Again, this is why those who push this story are the ones who already hate Obama and would take any chance to believe he's the evil-evil man he wants them to be (ditto Clinton.)

I'll eat my copy of Milton if any of that turns out to be due to "callousness."

As for "incompetence"--how about sometimes when you're ruling the most powerful nation on Earth you can't know everything at once, made a really bad mistake, and it cost American lives? That's called making a mistake, not sheer fumbling incompetence.

I'd remind you all that even the best hitters hit into outs 2/3 times, and the best weathermen are wrong all the time...even those at the top of their fields make mistakes--it's just that when the President makes a mistake it's a bigger deal than most (and in fairness, it SHOULD be a bigger deal--after all, that's part of the deal in taking the job, you take on a lot more responsibility and and your blunders could do a lot more damage, even when they're honest mistakes.)

Whatever you choose to call him or criticize him on, one thing Obama is not is incompetent.

"and 3) falsely blaming it on a video, locking up the guy who made the video, and stonewalling Congress (deception and abuse of power)"

1. The man's in prison, as I understand it, for breaking his parole.

2. Congress stonewalls the President when they get the chance...again, it's part of this nonsense of a game called politics.

3. Yes. Blaming it on the video was stupid.

You can't say "That was stupid of you, Mr. President, shame on you" and move on?
Of course not.
This needs to be dragged out as long as possible...
...because, of course, a couple bad decisions about a video and choice of words eight months ago are the single-most pressing thing on the docket right now, eh?

It isn't like Congress was just talking about gun control...
And reforming the immigration system finally...
And what to do about Syria...

No-no! THIS, truly, is the single most important thing, of course!

It's called a pattern. A pattern of abusing his office and of contempt for the public. You keep focusing on Benghazi, but it is a piece with the rest.

We don't need to move on. The American people need to see some people being fired, and they deserve some explanations. We cannot trust the administration right now, not to deal with Syria or anything else.

Maybe you can't...I can--as much as I'd trust any politician.

I expect Obama to lie some of the time.

No politician worth their salt gets where he or she does without a lie here and there.

I ask:

1. Will I get more of my interests addressed with Obama than a challenger (and the answer was a resounding "yes" in the face of Romney.)

2. Is this a lie too egregious for me to ever trust him again? (No...and maybe that varies for everyone, but again, I suspect those that have their backs broken over this never really backed Obama in the first place--and that'd seem to be the case with you, dipplayer, you don't support him or his ideals and simply want him gone, which is fine...I don't, however, and you can't deny this is in large part a product of partisan politics. Well, I suppose you could deny that, but I think that'd be incorrect.)

"A pattern of abusing his office and of contempt for the public."

1. Contempt for who? *I* don't feel he's contemptuous...maybe he's contemptuous towards some people--or maybe some people are contemptuous towards him, and want to see him ousted no matter what?

2. All presidents have abused their power since The War Powers Act (and if Putin were here he'd probably prattle on and on about how Jimmy Carter didn't and was a saint even if he was a one-and-done lame duck president, but I digress) so I don't hold it against Obama to simply follow the example his predecessors have set.

Blame the system, not the man--he's just using the tools afforded to him, it's not his fault some of those tools are rather crooked and shady.

"We don't need to move on."

Because this is worth getting hung up on? Really?

"The American people need to see some people being fired"

So now you're Robespierre calling for some heads to roll in order to satisfy a need you yourself have? Why? Why do Americans need to see heads roll? Over the IRS thing yes, I'd agree, someone should be fired...but over making a mistake in Benghazi? Until you're in that room and those shoes, again, you're simply clamoring for the coach to be fired because you hate the play-calling. Team America isn't coming off a 3-13 season, so I'm sorry, that's not happening, and every turnover or fumble is not the coach's fault.

"We cannot trust the administration right now"

As opposed to trusting the Bush administration?
Or Clinton after his scandals?
Or Reagan after the Iran Contra Affair?

Mistrust of the President is an American tradition.

"not to deal with Syria or anything else."

1. Hooray, someone finally gave this quasi-proxy war between Iran and Israel in the Middle East some attention! (Because Iran backing one side and Israel striking other targets...yeah...might be kind of important...a bit more important than who said what eight months ago...)

2. Why not?

Again, assuming all politicians need to lie to get where they are (and they do, and if you don't believe that we can stop right now and I can direct you to the nearest Reality Check Clinic if you'd like) why not?

Will his being stupid in blaming a video for the attack really impede his ability to deal with a crisis in Syria should it reach the point where American lives need to be put in the way?

I'll assume the most obvious objection--

"If he can't handle a security problem at an embassy, how is he going to handle a civil war in Syria?"

Good question. And a fair one.

But one that's NOT, I'd note, predicated on whether he lied or not, or whether we can trust him as a politician or person or not, but rather simply in his ability as Commander in Chief.

That being said, the 49ers are now, for better or worse, stuck with Kaepernick...

...and you're stuck with Obama for 3 more years, even if others are fired, so that's the pony you're stuck betting on, sorry.

I have been away a bit, but TEA party is not some right wing extremists, they simply focus hard on one thing. The budget and taxation issues. They hardly pipe up about other social issues much, but they are frothing at the mouth about the few things they do have issues with.

"I have been away a bit, but TEA party is not some right wing extremists, they simply focus hard on one thing. "
Textbook definition of extremist :-)

So does that make a NARAL member an extremist? An NAACP member?