Confident Obama ruffles feathers
HAGEL’S NOMINATION AS DEFENCE SECRETARY LATEST BOLD MOVE
WASHINGTON: Just two weeks before his second inauguration, President Barack Obama is acting as if he believes he has a big mandate for his next term. The latest sign: his decision to defy a concerted campaign against his choice for defence secretary.
The Democratic president, re-elected in November, unveiled a more combative approach during the end-ofyear “fiscal cliff” taxes and spending drama, exploiting disarray in Republican ranks that underscored Washington’s legislative dysfunction.
Obama also showed a “gettough” strategy in his determination to pursue gun control after last month’s massacre of schoolchildren by a gunman in Newtown, Connecticut.
The actions reflect the growing confidence of a president who, without the need to seek re-election, now feels freer to stand up to a new Congress. His first term was marked by complaints from his liberal base that he had been too conciliatory toward Republicans.
Some critics say Obama now runs the risk of overreaching when he should instead be building Republican bridges to resolve the next looming budget confrontation.
Obama’s latest assertive move came on Monday when he nominated Chuck Hagel as defence secretary, setting up a Senate confirmation battle with critics who have attacked the former Republican senator’s record on Israel and Iran.
Obama’s refusal to bow to Hagel’s opponents, including pro-Israel groups, neoconservative figures and some of Hagel’s own Republican colleagues, signalled that the president would not allow a top cab- inet candidate to be derailed again.
“This is clearly a president who feels somewhat unencumbered by electoral politics, thinks he has political capital to spend, and is not wasting any time about it,” said Costas Panagopoulos, a political scientist at Fordham University in New York.
The White House is confi- dent that Hagel can win confirmation in the Democratic-led Senate.
But Republican strategist John Feehery said Obama was taking a gamble that could backfire, especially in light of resistance from some of the president’s fellow Democrats to Hagel, a maverick moderate Republican.
“The president is betting a big percentage of his chips,” Feehery said.
“Presidents do tend to overread their mandates sometimes. The question is whether that’s the case now.”
Hagel’s nomination comes on the heels of a New Year’s Day deal that averted economic calamity when lawmakers agreed to prevent huge tax hikes and government spending cuts.
The agreement handed a victory to Obama, who had promised before the election to address budget woes in part by raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans.
Obama’s tough talk on the next round of fiscal hurdles could also limit his ability to push forward on other legislative priorities such as immigration reform and gun control.
The shooting rampage at a Connecticut primary school put gun control high on Obama’s second-term agenda. He appears to be determined to take advantage of a public backlash against gun violence.
Obama is also calculating that he may finally be able to make good on his promise to achieve comprehensive immigration reform. He hopes to capitalise on sentiment within the Republican Party that it must reach out to Latinos who voted heavily for Obama after tough comments on illegal immigration by Republicans.
Obama also is showing signs he will take a hard line on issues of war and peace. He meets Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the White House this week and is expected to press for immunity from prosecution as a condition for allowing even a relatively small contingent of US troops to stay behind in Afghanistan after the 2014 troop reduction.