If you didn’t notice, the president is running for President again.
That’s why all of sudden he’s gotten interested in “comprehensive” immigration reform.
If that sounds crass and cynical, then you are right. Crass and Cynical run the White House for at least 19 more months, dispensing law and justice to the rest of us.
The guy who rushed out to get trillions for banks, big pharmaceuticals and unions, practically ignored the topic of immigration reform when his guys ran Congress for two years and could have written their own version.
Indeed one of his wise-guys from Chicago, Rep Luis Gutierrez recently noted “[Obama] has the power to make things better right now without the Congress having to pass any new laws.”
Yeah, he can just do what he did for gays, unions, Chicago and all of his other cronies: He can ignore enforcing the old laws he doesn’t like. Or maybe he can grant every illegal immigrant a waiver, like he did for his favorites under healthcare “reform.”
Why hasn’t he presented an immigration reform proposal?
Because had Obama passed immigration reform under a Democrat-controlled Congress, he would have had to take responsibility for passing it. If he ignores the old laws now, he’ll have to take responsibility for that too.
And if there is one thing that Obama hates, it’s taking responsibility for anything.
If Bill Clinton was a draft-dodger, then Obama’s a vote dodger.
Jobs? Nope.
War? Nope.
Immigration reform? Present.
That’s why the president has had a death-bed conversion to the Democrat idea of immigration reform. It’s an idea that has died already. And he knows it.
Because the Democrat idea of immigration reform evades the idea of immigrants taking personal responsibility for following immigration laws, it’s probably a tempting proposition for the president.
But it’s a version of reform that he’ll likely never have to take responsibility for or even work on.
Because nothing will ever be presented by the president to Congress on immigration reform besides finger wagging and the clipped sentences that adorn all of Obama’s b-roll lectures to the rest of us.
If Obama’s presidency was a book it would be the Last Lecture.
The president dispensing law and justice followed by his prepared remarks can’t possibly end soon enough.
And it’s telling that Obama doesn’t think that Hispanic voters deserve the benefit of law and justice or quaint notions of the truth.
Instead, we have a president who is perfectly satisfied in making sure that millions of illegal immigrants stay here illegally, wholly dependent on his minions ability to give or take away residency.
Already liberals are lining up to trade horses with him: “He can’t pass a bill. But he is answerable to all the expanded enforcement actions and to the question people ask: Could you take the edge off enforcement” of illegal immigration laws? says said Angela Kelley with the liberal group Center for American Progress.
Or “Do you really have to follow the laws so verbatimly?” to paraphrase Mark Twain.
It’s so much easier for the president just to give a speech about immigration reform, and keep a important voting demographic entirely subject to his whim, rather than go through the hassle of writing legislation that might actually be read by members of the public, if not by Congress before a roll call vote.
“I just haven’t seen the outreach to offices on how to work together,” on immigration reform, said a senior House Republican aide who has worked on comprehensive immigration reform, according to Politico. “We have never seen anything followed through other than these public meetings. I just wonder where this work is that they’re doing.”
Obama’s conversion to a believer on immigration reform has more to do with his prayers to save his job as president than it does about actually improving the security of the county, economic or otherwise.
“Hispanics are a key element in his reelection campaign,” writes the Daily Caller, “partly because his support among working-class whites and swing-voters [has] crashed after two years of lousy economic conditions. But Hispanics’ turnout is low, and their lopsided support for him has tumbled from 68 percent to 54 percent over the last few years.”
And if Hispanic haven’t noticed that Obama’s running for president again, they’ll notice soon enough now that Crass and Cynical are in the race.
See Ransom's Top Picks for Thursday:
Kudlow: Bernanke's Quantitative Neutrality
Ransom: Crass and Cynical on Illegal Immigration
Shedlock: Oil Crashes
Ennico: A 'Rich Guy' Speaks Out Against Higher Taxes (Part 1 of 2)
Goodman: Unforgettable
Ransom: The Democrat Debt Mess
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