White House Concedes Obama 'Damaged' After Year of Defeats

The White House conceded that 2013 was a year of defeats that have left President Barack Obama damaged and lessened his credibility with the American public. 

According to the Washington Post, “an internal White House assessment concludes” that Obama was “badly damaged last year by legislative failures, a government shutdown and his own missteps.” The Post notes that though last year “began with the fresh-start ambitions of his second inauguration,” it “ended in a long trail of mistakes, international embarrassments and missed legislative opportunities that sapped Obama’s credibility with the public.”

White House senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer reportedly wrote a three-page memo assessing the White House’s failures on gun control, amnesty, and more government spending on the Farm Bill and food stamps legislation. Despite these failures, the White House is intent on pushing for amnesty, climate change legislation, and the implementation of more Obamacare programs in 2014 despite what the Post described as a “deeply flawed health-care rollout” that embarrassed the White House. 

Obama has previously admitted that it was “frustrating” that he could not get his biggest goal of 2013, which was amnesty. The White House also tried to exploit the Sandy Hook tragedy for more gun control and failed. Conservatives also prevented the White House from passing a pork-laden Farm Bill with more spending on food stamps.