Panetta, recently retired as Obama’s defense secretary, watched with growing concern. “I mean, look: As smart as Obama is, he doesn’t like politics, he doesn’t like the give-and-take that it takes to get things done,” he says. “Therefore, you need to delegate that to a tough chief of staff or to somebody else who can get that done. Quite frankly, I don’t understand this sense of giving up on key legislation on the Hill. I know they’ve had tough times, and it’s tough politics. But the sense that somehow they’re not going to push either a budget deal or immigration reform or infrastructure
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