Obama didn't have infinite political capital. We was dealing with some pretty heavy things in the aftermath of the stock market crash - stuff that was potentially alienating his own base, while also trying to push through his own legacy change (Obamacare). All of this through his peak popularity. If he had tried to squash the wiretapping then, it likely would have overextended him and saw his health care reforms squashed.
I guess maybe this is an unreasonable comment I'm going to make, but:
Yeah, Obama was low on political capital because he shot most of his wad at Obamacare, which didn't get as far as he wanted it, meaning that he loses political capital for losing relative to his goals. In this weak position, the thing to do is rally more political capital from the base... which he never did.
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Obama didn't have infinite political capital. We was dealing with some pretty heavy things in the aftermath of the stock market crash - stuff that was potentially alienating his own base, while also trying to push through his own legacy change (Obamacare). All of this through his peak popularity. If he had tried to squash the wiretapping then, it likely would have overextended him and saw his health care reforms squashed.
I guess maybe this is an unreasonable comment I'm going to make, but:
Yeah, Obama was low on political capital because he shot most of his wad at Obamacare, which didn't get as far as he wanted it, meaning that he loses political capital for losing relative to his goals. In this weak position, the thing to do is rally more political capital from the base... which he never did.