If President Obama continues to try to please his opponents and to let others push him around, he will not be as successful as JFK or Reagan. That's too bad, because he has all the other qualities of being a great president.
First, he gave ground to conservatives on government health insurance. He was right and they were wrong. SO why the give?
Second, he gave ground to leftist trade unionists by needlessly provoking the Chinese on tire imports.
Then he allowed his White House to get drawn into a verbal spat with FOX news--a can't-win scenario that only boosted FOX's ratings and made his Administration look petty.
NOW he's giving in to the Israelis on settlements--allowing them to consolidate the expansion of major settlements--and 900 new homes in East Jerusalem--without a whiff of sanction.
Obama may yet get his health care bill signed into law and a climate change treaty ratified--but I am afraid that they will surface in such watered down forms that they will be vulnerable to attack from both sides-- by the Left as insufficiently drastic and by the Right as being expensive with little tangible benefit.
When the President was sky-high in the polls, he could have been bolder on all of these issues. Now that his ratings have fallen to ordinary levels, he is even more likely to behave in an 'ordinary' manner. He must resist that temptation. Be BOLD, Mr. President. Be BOLD.
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