Obama Signs Military Spending Bill

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AppId is over the quota

He said that although he did not support all of it, changes made by Congress after negotiations with the White House had satisfied most of his concerns and had given him enough latitude to manage counterterrorism and foreign policy in keeping with administration principles.

“The fact that I support this bill as a whole does not mean I agree with everything in it,” Mr. Obama said in a statement issued in Hawaii, where he is on vacation. “I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists.”

The bill authorizes $662 billion in military spending through 2012. It is a smaller amount than the Pentagon had asked for, but it does not impose the radical cuts that the military faces in coming years.

The White House had said that the legislation could lead to an improper military role in overseeing detention and court proceedings and could infringe on the president’s authority in dealing with terrorism suspects. But it said that Mr. Obama could interpret the statute in a way that would preserve his authority.

The president, for example, said that he would never authorize the indefinite military detention of American citizens, because “doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation.” He also said he would reject a “rigid across-the-board requirement” that suspects be tried in military courts rather than civilian courts.

Congress dropped a provision in the House version of the bill that would have banned using civilian courts to prosecute those suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda. It also dropped a new authorization to use military force against Al Qaeda and its allies.

Civil liberties groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, still oppose the law, in part because of its authorization of military detention camps overseas. But Mr. Obama’s signature is likely to settle, at least for now, the battle between the White House and Congress over executive authority in the treatment of detainees.

The White House also wrestled with Congress over requirements that the United States punish foreign financial firms that purchase Iranian oil, including through Iran’s central bank. Such a step would greatly increase the pressure on Iran over its nuclear program.

But the administration feared that if the measures were imposed too hastily, they could disrupt the oil market, driving up prices and alienating countries, including close allies, that the United States is seeking to enlist in its pressure campaign against Iran.

Under the terms of the bill, Mr. Obama can delay sanctions by six months to assess their impact on oil prices. The president can also apply to Congress for a waiver exempting a country’s financial firms from sanctions, if he determines that the country significantly reduced its purchases of Iranian oil in the preceding 180 days. Or he can apply for a waiver exempting a country on national security grounds.

Senate Republicans, who pushed for the tougher sanctions, said it would be difficult for Mr. Obama to invoke a waiver, since it could make him look weak on Iran in an election year. But the administration said it was committed to imposing the sanctions.

“We have to do it in a timely way and phased way to avoid repercussions to the oil market, and make sure the revenues to Iran are reduced,” said an administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “But we believe we can do that.”

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Obama to Target Congress in 2012 Re-election Campaign

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AppId is over the quota

Mr. Obama’s election-year strategy is an attempt to capitalize on his recent victory on a short-term extension of the payroll tax cut and on his rising poll numbers. As the stage is set for November, he intends to hammer the theme of economic justice for ordinary Americans rather than continue his legislative battles with Congressional Republicans, said Joshua R. Earnest, the president’s deputy press secretary, previewing the White House’s strategy.

“In terms of the president’s relationship with Congress in 2012,” Mr. Earnest said at a briefing, “the president is no longer tied to Washington, D.C.” Winning a full-year extension of the cut in payroll taxes is the last “must-do” piece of legislation for the White House, he said.

However the White House chooses to frame Mr. Obama’s strategy, it amounts to a wholesale makeover of the young senator who won the presidency in 2008 by promising to change the culture of Washington, rise above the partisan fray and seek compromises.

After three years in office, Mr. Obama is gambling on a go-it-alone approach. In the coming weeks, he will further showcase measures he is taking on his own to revive the economy, Mr. Earnest said, declining to give details.

Mr. Obama has used his executive authority in recent weeks to promote the hiring of returning veterans and help students pay back their college loans. Underscoring the jobs theme, Mr. Obama plans to return to the road, starting with a trip to Cleveland on Wednesday to speak about the economy.

The White House laid out the election-year strategy last week here in Hawaii, where Mr. Obama is vacationing, just as attention turns to the Republican caucuses in Iowa on Tuesday.

The White House has been refining the message since July, when Mr. Obama’s attempts to forge a “grand bargain” with the House Republicans on fiscal policy collapsed and he reverted to a populist, anti-Congress strategy. But it did not gain traction until the last few weeks, when polls began showing that nearly half of Americans approved of the job he was doing, up from percentages in the low 40s during most of the year. House Republicans inadvertently helped him just before they recessed for the holidays when they initially refused to extend the payroll tax cut.

Mr. Earnest said the strategy had successfully planted “the image of a gridlocked, dysfunctional Congress and a president who is leaving no stone unturned to try to find solutions to the difficult financial challenges and economic challenges facing the country.”

Mr. Obama began emphasizing his new strategy in early December with a fiery speech in Osawatomie, Kan., where he said that “breathtaking greed” had contributed to the country’s economic troubles and that this was a “make-or-break moment for the middle class.”

In his weekly address on Saturday, Mr. Obama praised Congress for passing the two-month tax cut extension, but made it clear that the lawmakers had acted only under intense public pressure. He also repeated his vow to fight for middle-class Americans.

“As president, I promise to do everything I can to make America a place where hard work and responsibility are rewarded — one where everyone has a fair shot and everyone does their fair share,” he said.

Mr. Obama’s confrontational approach carries risks, since the imprimatur of Congress is still required for important national business. But the budget deal that resolved the standoff over raising the debt ceiling last summer removed a major weapon Republicans had to push the president.

On Friday, for example, Mr. Obama agreed to delay a request to Congress for $1.2 trillion in additional borrowing authority. That will allow lawmakers to come back to Washington to voice their opposition to more red ink. But even if they vote to block the measure, Mr. Obama can veto it, knowing that the Democratic-controlled Senate will not override him.

The president’s antagonism toward Congress evokes that of President Harry S. Truman, whose come-from-behind campaign in 1948 focused on a “do-nothing Congress.” But Republican analysts have pointed out that the national unemployment rate in November 1948 was 3.8 percent — not 8.6 percent, as it is now — and that the American economy was on the upswing.

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