Why Obama is surely facing a second term riddled with scandal and upheaval
But the re-elected president should be worrying about something else as well: the Second-Term Curse.
Dating back to Woodrow Wilson’s 1919 failure to bring the United States into the League of Nations, second presidential terms have almost always been disappointing and sad. There have been successes: Ronald Reagan passing tax reform in 1986 and Bill Clinton balancing the budget. But far more common are thwarted ambitions, scandal and a slow slide towards political irrelevance.
“This time it’s different” would be the likely response from Obama’s true believers. And these acolytes could be correct since historical patterns are merely suggestive rather than Marxist Iron Laws. But still it is likely that sometime before Moving Van Day in 2017, Obama will be embarrassed by at least one of these four factors:
Blowback
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His Presidency must die with a whimper, if it could not go out with a banging landslide. The LSM can’t cover everything that will go wrong the coming four years.
Sekhmet on November 12, 2012 at 3:03 PM
The media is relabeling every sh!t sandwich Obama Administration is handing them as “Kobe Beef Delight“.
But the growing stink will eventually alert even the 51% somnambulistic public than something is rotten in the state of Leading From Behind-ville.
Benghazi-gate is rising from Ambassador Stevens’ grave.
Petraeus being the pall bearer who slipped.
profitsbeard on November 12, 2012 at 3:10 PM
With the Petreaus/Benghazi mess being revealed, I get the smell of blood in the air. The MSM just isn’t going to be able to cover for him anymore.
SC.Charlie on November 12, 2012 at 3:10 PM
Right, because everybody in America knows about Fast and Furious and the hundreds of people killed by Obama’s DoJ. And that he’s trying to hide it with executive privilege. And that American border agents were killed.
He’s already had at least one scandal that would have brought down a GOP president, a big enough one that an honorable man would have at least not run again, if not resigned.
What makes you think that anything short of shutting down the media will make them actually stand up to this guy?
PastorJon on November 12, 2012 at 3:36 PM
This president is never, ever, ever going to be held to account for a single scandal or misstep. Never. It is not going to happen. Get over imagining that. He can, quite literally, do anything he wants and he will only be lauded for it. Imagining anything else is insane, and pathetic. We have a king, and the king can do no wrong. Get used to it.
Rational Thought on November 12, 2012 at 4:06 PM
Because F&F and Benghazi has bitten this Administration so hard thanks to our diligent media and concerned citizens demanding answers….
This Administration has and will continue to LITERALLY get away with murder…
Yakko77 on November 12, 2012 at 4:47 PM
You have a funny name. I don’t know about anyone else, but I do not consider the media reliable even when reporting supposedly objective things like employment numbers or illegals deported or number of people on food stamps. As for the stock market or other numbers that aren’t easily fudged and spun, I would think that would be the very least we should be expecting from “news” organizations.
Night Owl on November 12, 2012 at 4:48 PM
It will be interesting in the future to see how something that was perfectly acceptable under Obama will once again be horrific under a Republican.
Night Owl on November 12, 2012 at 4:52 PM
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