The New Republic runs an excerpt from Noam Scheiber’s The Escape Artists which gives an inside account of last year’s debt ceiling/deficit struggle.
“For voters contemplating whether he deserves a second term, the question is less and less one of policy or even worldview than of basic disposition. Throughout his political career, Obama has displayed an uncanny knack for responding to existential threats… But, in every case, the adjustments didn’t come until the crisis was already at hand. His initial approach was too passive and too accommodating, and he stuck with it far too long.”