Steve Chapman on the Upside of the President’s Fading Power

About now,
Barack Obama may be wondering why he thought it would be such fun
to serve a second term rather than go lounge on a beach in Hawaii.
Life in the White House has become a daily ordeal of pain and
frustration. Nothing is going well. On the foreign front, he has to
contend with an aggressive Vladimir Putin, an unsuccessful war in
Afghanistan and his failure to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace
process. Domestically, he has to endure a Department of Veterans
Affairs scandal, an underperforming economy, a health care overhaul
whose ultimate success is in doubt, House hearings on Benghazi, and
an inability to get Congress to do anything he wants.

But a year from now, writes Steve Chapman, the president may
look back at 2014 with fond nostalgia. That’s because however
limited his power and influence in Washington, they’re about to
shrink.

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