Obama disappoints, again
President Barack Obama has one person to blame for looking indecisive, dithering and cowed by bungled political calculations: Barack Obama.
He's the one, after all, who strode into the Rose Garden on June 30 to announce that America couldn't wait forever on immigration reform and pledging to move forward with a set of executive actions "before the end of summer." He's the one who spent that afternoon lighting into Republicans in Congress for punting and punting and punting again.
Now he's the one punting.
Obama, appearing on "Meet the Press," attributed his decision to punt immigration reform action until after Election Day to making "sure that the t's are crossed and the i's are dotted," or "getting all our ducks in a row," on the legal side and needing to spend some more time explaining himself to the American public.
(See POLITICO's full immigration coverage)
This is a reoccurring theme for Obama: repeatedly delivering bold speeches that set dazzlingly high bars for action, then slowly backpedaling into a muddle and letting the issue -- and his poll numbers -- fade away.
From his 2008 campaign pledge to ban lobbyists in his administration to the speech he gave at the Newtown memorial service saying he was finally going to do something significant about gun control, Saturday's announcement was another little splinter in the heartbreak for many Obama true believers.
"When candidate Obama asked our community for support in 2008 and 2012, he urged us all to vote based on our hopes, not our fears," said Janet Murguía, president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza. "Today, President Obama gave in to the fears of Democratic political operatives, crushing the hopes of millions of hard-working people living under the constant threat of deportation and family separation."
(Also on POLITICO: Obama punts on immigration until after election)
"Slow-walking justice for millions will not prevent Republicans from using nativist animosity to get their base to the polls and does even less to inspire Democrats' grassroots progressive base at a critical political moment," said Democracy for American executive director Charles Chamberlain.
Even before Saturday morning, the feckless narrative was renewed last week with his "we don't have a strategy yet" on ISIL line as he, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel have all seemed to express different versions of how to confront the Islamic State threat.
"It is a small example of the actual promise of his presidency, which was to change the way business was done, to make people feel like this country was working for them," said one frustrated Democratic strategist. "People are just giving up."
The White House argues that the blame shouldn't fall solely on Obama's shoulders. He made the promises, but he didn't say he'd be ready to tear up the Constitution to try to live up to those promises.
(Also on POLITICO: Obama says politics shifted on immigration)
"It's no secret that Republicans in Congress have engaged in a coordinated, sustained strategy to block every element of the president's agenda," said White House press secretary Josh Earnest. "That's why the president has routinely acted on his own -- within the confines of the law -- to make good on his promises and make good progress for middle class families."
The White House spent Saturday trying to reassure immigration advocates and other disappointed supporters: it's not that Obama's given up on the executive actions, it's that he didn't want his wading into the immigration fight to get blamed for Democrats losing the Senate and setting back the overall cause of getting reform.
The executive actions are still coming, officials say, with the timetable moved from "before the end of the summer" to before the end of the year.
Though Obama's decision "pales in comparison" to House Republicans' failure to act, it's "a disappointment with real consequences," said Neera Tanden, a former Obama aide who's now the president of the Center for American Progress -- a think tank usually so closely aligned with the White House that its founder, John Podesta, left to become a senior counselor to Obama.
Even as a matter of political tactics, there's a level of resignation to being exasperated with the White House, which has chalked up the change of course in part to the fallout from the unaccompanied minors border crisis over the summer.
"The truth of the matter is that the politics did shift midsummer because of that problem," Obama said in the "Meet the Press" interview.
But it's not as if the White House wasn't aware of the crisis when Obama threw down the gauntlet in the Rose Garden: the first half of his remarks that afternoon was devoted to addressing the situation and initial steps he was directing his administration to take in response.
It's also not as if they weren't aware then that control of the Senate was going to hinge on a whole swath of red-state Democrats scratching out narrow wins in electorates where immigration reform isn't all that popular -- and a president resetting national policy on his own is even less so.
At the beginning of July, the day after trying to stick it to Texas Gov. Rick Perry -- and through him, the House Republicans -- for not supporting his supplemental budget request on the border crisis, Obama gave a punchy speech in Austin, mocking Republicans for threatening to impeach him.
"You hear some of them: 'Sue him! Impeach him!'" Obama said then, as the House prepared to move forward on its lawsuit against him. "Really? For what, doing my job?"
Then he never made an issue out impeachment again, even as the White House took the threatsomewhat seriously and outside Democrats whipped up the politics of it. And when the same fervent right-wing chatterers shifted to threatening another shutdown ahead of the Sept. 30 continuing resolution deadline, he didn't engage that either.
Immediately after the president spoke that afternoon in the Rose Garden, Obama aides were already signaling that their definition of "end of the summer" didn't necessarily align with wall calendars or the tilt of the Earth's axis. But rather than dangling the threat of executive actions another week or two to try baiting Republicans into picking up the impeachment or shutdown talk, by announcing the move Saturday, the damage landed all on him without aiming for a maneuver that could have caused some damage to the other side.
That's the other side of the Obama disappointment -- the feeling of a total disconnect between his sweeping rhetoric and the political practicalities involved in delivering on that rhetoric.
Obama, Senate Democrats and House Republicans "might rest easier tonight knowing they've avoided another inconvenient political problem," Murguía added. "But I guarantee that the dreams they have shattered today will haunt them far into the future."
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