Opinion: Obama’s tantalizing comments in his post-election press conference

President Obama’s post-election news conference was notable for several things, including its length, the asperity with which he responded to tendentious questions and the stream-of-consciousness soliloquy with which he ended his remarks. But I was struck by two tantalizing comments with policy implications.

The first concerned executive action on immigration, which Obama promised “before the end of the year.” Granted, Obama fiddled with an earlier deadline after complaints from Democratic Senate candidates in red or purple states, but this time he seemed to lock himself in to do something by the end of the year. And he portrayed executive action to defer the deportation of some number of immigrants here illegally as a way to goad Republicans in Congress to pass some legislation in response.

“Whatever executive actions I take will be replaced, supplanted” by legislation, Obama said.

Of course, he wouldn’t sign legislation that would lead to the deportation of people he had just acted unilaterally to protect from deportation. So he seems to have decided that executive action might be a way to force the Republicans in the House to approve the “comprehensive” bill passed last year by the Senate, which included not only legalization but provisions attractive to Republicans, such as border-security measures and a greater emphasis on offering legal status to skilled immigrants.

But Obama’s defiance could have limits. Suppose he used executive action to defer the deportation of only a subset of unauthorized immigrant -- say, the parents of the so-called Dreamers, who were brought to this country when they were children. That action would be accompanied by the threat, implicit or explicit, that Obama would move to legalize even more immigrants if there was no progress on an immigration bill.

The second signal I found interesting was Obama’s suggestion that he wanted to work with Congress on an authorization for use of military force (AUMF) in connection with the effort to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

“With respect to the AUMF, we’ve already had conversations with members of both parties in Congress,” Obama said. “And the idea is to -- to right size and update whatever authorization Congress provides to suit the current fight, rather than previous fights.”

This represents a departure from the position Obama announced in the Sept. 10 speech about the Islamic State. In that address, the president said that he welcomed congressional support for the campaign but also said “I have the authority to address the threat from ISIS.”

It’s true that in the past Obama has spoken about amending the AUMF passed by Congress after 9/11. In a speech last year, he said he looked forward to “engaging Congress and the American people in efforts to refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF’s mandate.” But that was before the Islamic State emerged as a threat in both Iraq and Syria and administration lawyers decided that the AUMF provided legal cover for Obama’s air campaign.

Even as Obama was speaking, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) sent out a press release in which he called on House Speaker John Boehner to schedule a debate and vote on an anti-Islamic State AUMF during the lame-duck session.

After having insisted that he already had the authority to prosecute the war against the Islamic State, why would Obama propose that Congress pass a new resolution?

It’s not clear, but one cynical explanation is that such a request would put Republicans on the spot. Some are eager exponents of the war against the Islamic State, but others may feel tugged at by a libertarian (if not isolationist) impulse to keep the U.S. out of foreign conflicts. A publc split between Republicans on that question might offer the president some small consolation for Tuesday’s election results.

Follow Michael McGough on Twitter @MichaelMcGough3