You have to go some way back to find a US president entering his last year without having been written off as a lame duck. Barack Obama stands little chance of enacting anything dramatic before he leaves office. But he has had years to get used to that. His abiding setback came in 2010 after Republicans took control of the House of Representatives. Little has passed since then. Yet Mr Obama’s closing months have a potential that is missing from most tail-end presidencies. US society is far more bitter and deeply polarised than when he took office. For those who can still recollect, Mr Obama’s original promise was to heal those divisions. He still has 12 months to make good on it.
要想找到一位進入最後一年任期卻沒有因爲被當作「跛腳鴨」而不受重視的美國總統，恐怕你要追溯到很多年以前。在離任前，巴拉克•歐巴馬(Barack Obama)沒什麼勝算推動通過任何重大法案。不過，他已經有很多年適應這個現實。他的持久挫敗始於2010年共和黨控制衆議院(House of Representatives)之後。自那以後幾乎沒有通過任何法案。不過，歐巴馬最後數月的任期有一個潛力是大多數「跛腳」總統所沒有的。如今的美國社會遠比他上任時更加矛盾尖銳，兩極化更加嚴重。對那些仍然記得的人而言，當初歐巴馬的承諾是彌合這些裂痕。他還有12個月來兌現這一承諾。