Obama May Have to Bypass Hill to Go Forward

While President Barack Obama was able to score at least two legislative victories in the lame-duck Congress – tax cuts and gays in the military – he’ll have to bypass Congress if he wants to accomplish much going forward, many experts say. That’s because he’s caught between the incoming Republican House majority on the right and alienated liberal Democrats on the left, Politico reports.

The experts say Obama must turn to executive orders that allow him to implement policy without Congress, new policy ideas that avoid liberal-conservative conflicts and speeches challenging Americans to sacrifice so that long-term problems can be solved.

“He needs to be CEO of America,” former Clinton White House chief of staff John Podesta tells Politico. “It is a bully pulpit role as leader of the country to give people a sense of both the challenge of the project — and the opportunity of the project — of moving the country to a better place.”