George Will: Other Than Nixon 'Has There Ever Been a Worse First Year of a Second Term?'

GEORGE WILL: Well, it’s one thing for Bill Clinton to say, “I feel your pain.” It’s another thing for Barack Obama to say, “I feel your pain that I have caused,” and for him to say it was caused by a “situation.” That’s the word he used in the operative sentence. We, this week, marked the one-year anniversary of his reelection. Has there ever–with the exception of Richard Nixon in 1973–been a worse first year of a second term? The Pew survey this week has approval of his performance on healthcare–healthcare, his signature issue–disapproval 59 percent. That’s a little bit less than the 60 percent disapproval on immigration and 65 percent on the economy. And now the Democrats are going to get to vote on some things, maybe, or at least Mr. Reid will have to stop them in the Senate. Here’s, for example, the “If You Like Your Health Plan You Can Keep It Act” from Senator Ron Johnson. It’s four pages long, which makes it 902 pages shorter than the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. And these are opportunities for discomfort for the supporters of the Affordable Care Act.