saga of his second term. he did lose a year of his presidency. george w. bush, did anything go right for him after katrina? now, less than a year after he beat back mitt romney, we are starting to here it. the chatter from washington that president obama is reaching a tipping point. in his own second term slump, the lame duck status is upon us. that noise got louder this week. here s a taste from politico. their head lines, what s wrong with barak barak. across the capital, it reads, anxious friends and enemies alike are asking what is wrong with obama? the evidence that something is wrong with obama, has something gone bad, of course, in his 62nd term? well, his approval rating has dropped from the high 40s now to the mid-40s in the last few weeks. there has been vocal dissent, democrats opposing the white house on syria. there is a whole syria drama, itself. stories about the white house haphazardly lunching from one posture to another. you add that together. have you something w
presidency. there were congressional hearings. there were criminal investigations. there were criminal convictions. reagan was forced to go on national tv and admit that he traded arms for hostages. at one point the articles of impeach e peachment were introduced. with that finally settled, reagan kept his job. -se a lame duck. he coasted through the final days of his presidency on fumes t. thing is the story of reagan s second term is more or less par for the course when it comes to the modern presidency t. details vary, but for presidents who win two terms, the basic arc is the same. an invigorateing rejuvenateing re-election victory, lofty talk of ambitious goals. somewhere in the second term, a slump, declining poll numbers increaseing dissent. talk of diminished clout. lost relevance, all the markers of lame duck status. richard nixon won all but one state in 1972. but his second term, at least the year-and-a-half he got to serve was lost to watergate. bill clinton never lost the
into a lame duck president, that obama presidency itself, essentially hangs in the balance on this vote. is that an exaggeration or would that be an accurate and fair assessment? i don t think it is too much of an exaggeration. already, even before the vote, we see issues such as immigration being crowded out and basically this is sucking up all the oxygen right now. if he can t win this vote, you know, a matter of war, which is virtually unprecedent for a president to lose, it is hard it see how he gets the republican house to do anything. so barring unexpected victory, that does put him into sort of an early lame duck status. extraordinarily early. there s a lot of duck about precisely how the white house handled this particular matter, or not handled this particular matter. i want to play what he said and talk about this on the other
david cameron would make the phone call to the president. does the president face lame duck status? we like to throw around that term a lot any time a president is in his or her second term. we re in a situation where congress is in state of gridlock. it s not looking like it s passing immigration reform. we don t know what will happen with the debt ceiling debate. it will be difficult for him to pass anything. when you re talking about war it becomes that much difficult because we re so war weary in this country. it suggests he doesn t have a whole lot of persuasion power especially with the republicans in congress. i think it s not exactly a great moment for him. i don t think that it was a winnable situation to begin with. susan, since it seems like our lawmakers never put politics out of calculus in anything. how many lawmakers want to be on
towards the end of health care. towards the end of health care. but obviously now, look, the white house has a very small window. the president s going to come back. he s going to go before the american people and make his case. they understand in the white house that if he were to lose this vote, the rest of his agenda hangs in the balance. what will this do to embolden republicans in the congress who are not likely to support him on a lot of things including the debt ceiling and everything and immigration and everything else he s got coming up. this will sort of really expedite a lame duck status for him. so, they really understands who at stake here domestically as well as on the international stage. we re waiting for president obama to speak in st. petersburg, russia, and we ll go live as soon as he comes out. before we do, we want to go to austin, and bring in douglas brinkley from rice university. how difficult is this situation for president obama meeting overseas with wor