Politico has published a disturbing account of the president and his plans for the next two years in a piece entitled “The Obama Paradox.” 

Once again, Obama is the innocent bystander, bullied by his enemies and isolated through no fault of his own.  Politico’s portrayal of Obama as the eternal victim is an effective ploy.  With the media behind him, he can proclaim that the Republicans are picking on him and that the only way to stop them is to take matters into his own hands.

The president’s political world is more and more beyond his command. Instead, it is driven by Republicans in Congress, potentially power-shifting Senate races in states where Obama isn’t welcomed to campaign, and to speculation centered on Hillary Clinton’s agenda — not his own.

According to Politico, Obama also told aides that “losing the Senate to Republicans would make his last two years unbearable[.] … 'I don’t really care to be President without the Senate.'”  Which raises the question, will he step down if Democrats lose the Senate in 2014?

Paradoxically, Politico suggests, Obama is at his best when he is down for the count.  When it looked as if 2013 would be a bust with the disastrous ObamaCare website rollout and no movement on immigration reform or gun control, Mr. Obama rallied his despondent troops.  He told them that “the presidency is the most powerful force on the planet,” so why not treat it that way?

…this was classic Obama, who is usually at his sharpest while trying to claw out of a major hole. As Denis McDonough, Obama’s chief of staff, said in an interview, “Hungry tiger fights best right now, and he is one hungry dude. You feel it, and you can’t help but kind of get into that even if you are going through the pretty grim days of October and November.’’

Spurred by these sessions and senior staff meetings, the White House developed a calendar of go-it-alone actions that the president could unveil, a mix of executive orders, public-private partnerships, summits and presidential memoranda to show that Congress hadn’t rendered him irrelevant.

This is what we’ll be doing for the next three years,” said Jennifer Palmieri, the White House communications director, who participates in weekly meetings convened by Pfeiffer to keep the schedule on track. “You can’t do that when you are tied to Congress.”

Jon Favreau, Obama’s former speechwriter, said the president’s executive actions “have been very important to his mind-set.”

A Harvard professor who wrote two policy memos in 2013 for Obama stated that the president is thinking about the future:

He’s not trying to change the agenda for the next six months,  he’s trying to change it for the next six or 12 years.

Politico points out that White House dinners are becoming more frequent, and so are Obama’s golf outings, if that is possible.  After one party,  which included Obama's new buddy, basketball player Alonzo Mourning, the president told his guests, “I needed this, I needed the golf, I needed to laugh. I needed to spend time with friends.”

Obama and his cronies are apparently so tired of the “miniscule and mundane” that one influential Democrat in touch with the White House and the president said, “He is fatigued. His staff is fatigued…I wouldn’t be surprised if they looked at the next three years and think, 'Oh my God, how are we going to survive the next 36 months of this bulls***?'”

Oh, and the administration’s goal for last year?  “Save the Presidency.”  So far, so good, according to his aides.  Obama has not been hit with impeachment proceedings and other legal challenges, like his two predecessors – “knock on wood.”

Meanwhile, the president and Politico completely ignore the pain and suffering of ordinary tax-paying citizens – that is, the ones not playing golf.  Take the 78% rise in long-term unemployment from Obama's first inauguration until his second, or the 55% rise in the national debt, or the 104% rise in food stamp recipients, or the 62% rise in mortgage delinquencies, or the 78% rise in the price of gas, or the 21% rise in the misery index.

So suck it up, America.  It is not about you.