Kristol: Obama Wants Short-Term Political Gains More than Long-Term Successes

The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol gibed at Democrats for still trying to defend the Obama administration amid its series of mishaps. He also said that the problems facing the president are due to his approach to governing.

“Barack Obama cares more about beating Republicans for very short-term gain, like he did in the shutdown, than making sure his second term is a success,” Kristol said on Morning Joe on Monday morning. Bill Clinton, for instance, would have brought himself to embrace Republicans’ proposals for delays to Obamacare, Kristol argued, in order to buy himself time and political capital down the road.

Kristol, appearing from Chicago, where former Obama adviser David Axelrod routinely appears on the show from, had some fun at the expense of the president’s supporters. “He comes here once or twice a week, doesn’t he? I feel like I should play David, and defend President Obama even more vigorously, but I think it’s getting hard for even his defenders to do that,” he said.