James Risen:

My own gut tells me that what Obama decided to do was in early 2009 decided to focus on economic and healthcare policies and that in order to do those things on the domestic side, he had to protect his flank on national security and not fight the Republicans on national security, so I think there was a calculated move by Obama to prolong the War on Terror in order to try to focus on domestic issues. And I think that after a while, he lost control of that narrative.

Daniel P. Bolger:

The surge in Iraq did not "win" anything. It bought time. It allowed us to kill some more bad guys and feel better about ourselves. But in the end, shackled to a corrupt, sectarian government in Baghdad and hobbled by our fellow Americans' unwillingness to commit to a fight lasting decades, the surge just forestalled today's stalemate.

Steve Kroft:

It's less a case of wanting to get something done, than coming up with the hundreds of billions of dollars needed to do it. There is no shortage of ideas from Democrats or Republicans who've suggested everything from raising the gas tax to funding infrastructure through corporate tax reform. But there is no consensus and not much political support for any of the alternatives ...

Michael Tomasky:

Obama's top priorities heading into the last two years of his administration should be these four items: protecting the health care law, trying to see that the recovery extends to middle-class wages, strengthening the anti-ISIS coalition, and working to secure the nuclear deal with Iran.

Of my four suggested priorities, you may have noticed that Obama's ability to control them is quite limited. In each case, the other branches of government will have arguably more power than even Obama to shape outcomes. This reflects the reality of American politics today. And with Republican Senate and House committee chairmen soon to have investigative and subpoena power, the Obama era will likely end as acrimoniously as it began. Or perhaps even more so.

Francis Fukuyama:

The depressing bottom line is that given how self-reinforcing the country's political malaise is, and how unlikely the prospects for constructive incremental reform are, the decay of American politics will probably continue until some external shock comes along to catalyze a true reform coalition and galvanize it into action.

Adam Gopnik:

The best argument for reading history is not that it will show us the right thing to do in one case or the other, but rather that it will show us why even doing the right thing rarely works out. What history generally "teaches" is how hard it is for anyone to control it, including the people who think they're making it.