Is Obama a lame duck? With less than two years left in office, President Obama is trying to defy those who insist his power is waning.

• Author: Smith, Patricia
• Position: NATIONAL - Barack Obama

The morning after the Democrats' resounding defeat in the midterm elections last November, the world seemed ready to bestow a new title on President Obama: lame duck.

"Obama a 'lame duck' for last two years of his presidency," screamed a headline in Britain's Daily Mail.

"Unfortunately for the president, his lame duck status has intensified dramatically," commentator Chris Stirewalt said on a Fox News political talk show here at home.

What exactly is a lame duck? And does Obama qualify? A lame duck is an elected official whose power has waned after being defeated for re-election, deciding not to run again, or not running again because term limits won't allow it. Why a lame duck? Because it's weak and can't keep up with the rest of the flock.

The term traces its roots to 18th-century Britain. In the U.S., the 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951, built a certain lame-duck status into the presidency when it prohibited presidents from running for a third term. (The amendment was spurred by Franklin D. Roosevelt's four terms in the White House, which some viewed as too many.)

Obama is the fifth president since then to confront the problem of trying to remain effective during his last years in office. The others were Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush (see box).

There are plenty of reasons why a president in Obama's shoes might be inclined to limp off into the sunset. Republicans took control of Congress in November by winning a majority in the Senate and adding to their majority in the House of Representatives. And with the 2016 presidential election already gathering steam, some people are beginning to look past Obama toward his successor.

Bypassing Congress

But despite the rebuke voters handed his party at the polls, Obama has gone on the offensive. He issued an executive order that will temporarily shield about 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation and allow them to work legally in the United States. He sealed a major climate-change deal, announcing that China and the U.S., the world's top-two carbon emitters, will make significant cuts in emissions. And he re-established diplomatic ties with Cuba for the first time in 50 years. None of these actions required congressional approval.

"The midterm defeat energized him," says Stephen Hess, a presidential scholar at the Brookings Institution. "It gave him a degree of getup-and-go that didn't seem to be there for a while."

No matter how hard he pushes...