Voices: A week of vital triumphs for Obama

WASHINGTON — Senior White House aides bristle during a word “legacy,” that to them sounds a small too many like “lame duck.”

But in a camber of a few hours Thursday, President Obama managed to both concrete a cornerstone of his bequest and infer that, as domestic waterfowl go, he still has some life in his presidency.

A week or dual ago, newspapers spilled shipping containers full of ink on a passing of Obama’s trade package in Congress. After all, he couldn’t even lift one of his closest allies, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. How could he interpretation a “legislative snafu” to get a trade bills done?

“I’m not going to suppose about not removing it done,” Obama said. “I intend to get it done.”

Then there were a questions about a strait skeleton for Thursday’s large preference on Obamacare. What happens if a Supreme Court strikes down subsidies for sovereign health word changes? Doesn’t Obama have a devise B?

“I’m not going to go into a prolonged conjecture expecting disaster,” Obama said.

Thursday, it became transparent he had gotten trade finished and averted disaster on health care. Ninety mins after a Supreme Court preference support Obamacare, Obama walked into a Rose Garden and announced a Affordable Care Act “is here to stay.

An hour after that, a House upheld a final pieces of Obama’s trade package, permitting him to pointer into law bills that give him “fast-track” negotiating management while providing assistance to workers who competence be put out of a pursuit by any trade agreement he signs.

Each large feat came interjection to doubtful allies: House and Senate Republicans on trade and Chief Justice John Roberts — whose assignment as arch probity Obama voted opposite in a Senate — on health care.

“These are apparently dual utterly opposite process issues, though they illustrate some critical things about this boss and this presidency,” White House orator Josh Earnest said. Among them: “They illustrate a president’s eagerness to work with whomever will work with him,” he said.

On health care, Obama didn’t find validation from Roberts, whose 6-3 infancy opinion hold that health word subsidies are authorised even in states but state-run word exchanges. Instead, Obama said, a law’s many critical confirmation comes from a 16 million some-more people who have health insurance.

“This is not an epitome thing anymore,” he said. “This is not a set of domestic articulate points. This is reality.”

As in other debates Obama thinks are staid — such as meridian change — Republicans have other ideas.

“The problem with Obamacare is still essentially a same. The law is broken,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said. Every vital claimant for a GOP assignment for boss is against to it.

But it’s apropos increasingly formidable to pull a “undo” symbol on Obamacare, even if Republicans brush in 2016. That’s something Obama has counted on all along. “What we’re not going to do is uncover what has now been woven into a fabric of America,” Obama pronounced Thursday.

Still, there would be no champagne corks popping during a White House on possibly issue, Earnest said. For one thing, Obama leaves Friday for Charleston, S.C., to broach a acknowledgment for a Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who was murdered along with 8 others final week in what appears to be a racially encouraged conflict on his church. That debate will substantially prominence another Obama priority prolonged created off as unattainable: gun control.

Though Obama wouldn’t spike a football, he did concede himself a brief impulse to simulate on his accomplishments.

“So this was a good day for America,” Obama said. “Let’s get behind to work.”

Korte is a White House contributor for USA TODAY.

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