Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza President Barack Obama returns to the Oval Office after giving interviews in the Rose Garden of the White House, May 6, 2014. I t's axiomatic to the point of cliché that in their second terms, presidents turn their attention to foreign affairs, where they have latitude to do what they want without having to get Congress's permission. By the time they've been in office for five or six years, they're so fed up with wrangling 535 ornery legislators that they barely bother anymore, and without an election looming (and with approval ratings often sliding down), they concentrate on what they can do on their own. But faced with an opposition of unusual orneriness—perhaps more so than any in American history— Barack Obama has made clear that he won't just be concentrating on foreign policy. He'll be doing whatever he can to achieve domestic goals as well, even if Republicans have made legislating impossible. The conflict over the actions he has taken...