President Obama delivered his address this evening that laid out his proposals for immigration reform. His plan was a balanced collection of enhanced security measures along with the more controversial initiative to delay deportations for family members of citizens.
The President made an impassioned plea to preserve families and the values that define American character. He supported his authority to take these steps by noting that every president – Republican and Democrat – for the past half century have taken similar actions. And he prevailed upon the Congress to produce legislation that would make permanent reforms and negate entirely the need for this executive action.
And the response from the conservatives who inhabit the Fox News asylum of kneejerk negativity? Well, you can probably guess. There were four main arguments that the right-wing politicians and pundits threw back at the President, and none of them addressed the substance of the issue.
- One: Obama is overstepping his legal authority and venturing into the realm of an unconstitutional breach of separation of powers. However, most actual legal experts (including Bush’s former Attorney General Michael Mukasey earlier today on Fox News) agree that the specific measures being implemented by Obama are within his authority to take.
- Two: The president should have waited for Congress to act rather than “going it alone.” But by any objective analysis that would have taken longer than the President has left in office. Congress has shown a distinct disinterest in advancing this issue. There is already a bill that was passed by the Senate on a bipartisan basis that would pass tomorrow in the House if Speaker John Boehner would allow a vote. Don’t hold your breath.
- Three: They wonder why Obama didn’t get a bill through Congress during the first two years of his first term when Democrats controlled the House and Senate. For the record, Democrats did not have a filibuster proof majority in the Senate for six months after the election while votes were still being counted and contested for Al Franken’s seat in Minnesota. After that there was a full agenda that included health care, recovery from a severe economic collapse, and matters involving the two wars that were still raging in Afghanistan and Iraq. And in the final analysis, it is congress that sets the agenda for what legislation will be taken up, not the President. That’s the same congress that has distinguished itself in the last six years as the least productive in history. More to the point, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the debate today. The only reason it is brought up is to distract from the issue at hand.
- Four: The Fox contingent accused Obama of hypocrisy for saying in the past that he didn’t have the legal authority to do this, but now he is doing it anyway. However, they are badly conflating two different positions. Obama’s prior remarks correctly stated that he could not assume the authority of congress to make laws such as granting citizenship. But that isn’t what he did today. It is entirely within the President’s purview to instruct his Department of Justice on matters of prosecutorial discretion. Furthermore, it is within his authority direct the law enforcement resources of the Border Patrol and Immigration services.
The problem with Fox News and the GOP is that they complain about the President trying to move forward, but offer no solutions themselves. They allege that he is doing it solely for political purposes. So why don’t they stifle his scheme by passing a bill of their own? Not only would that deny Obama the political high ground they think he is trying to grab, it would nullify the executive action announced today that they so bitterly oppose and believe is unconstitutional. Why do they engage in evasive arguments by reaching back to the President’s earliest days in office, and even before that, to raise irrelevancies that ignore the real issue?
By refusing to act, Congress is demonstrating that all of their whining is no more than a disingenuous and partisan temper tantrum. They prove that they are more interested in having an argument than a solution. Congress has the power to set the course going forward and cast aside what they regard as a presidential power grab, but they won’t exercise it. And until they can explain why, their bitching has to be dismissed as cynical political carping and distraction.
It’s don’t matter what the President does or does not do, all the GOP is going to do is oppose him, they don’t care. Obama could in the last month of office reveal himself as Jesus himself and the GOP would bitch about that as well. I mean the GOP and Fox would just go on about how Jesus is white kids, don’t believe your eyes.
I watched the President’s speech and it is hard to make an argument against his moderate executive order but that will not stop the Republicans from making asses of themselves. Not only was what the President did the right thing to do, it is a brilliant political move imo. After the bigoted and racist elements of the Republicans’ reaction are demonstrated in full view of the Latino community they will lose that communities’ support for a generation and deservedly so.
No need over-analyze the Foxtards where Obama is concerned; it is never really about issues, it is about HATE. They hate him. And they know their elderly, ignorant, white viewers hate him too, so attacking him on FoxNotNews is as natural as cartoons on Cartoon Network and titties on Playboy Channel. The hate him because he’s a Democrat, and that is reason enough to impeach (remember Clinton?). And most of them hate him because he’s an uppity, over-educated “blah” man who doesn’t know his place. And in many places in 21st century America, that’s enough to get you beaten up, arrested on bogus charges, possibly even murdered.
To those Rethuglicans who still insist that it’s never about race; save your indignation and try a little self-awareness instead. I’ve been around. I grew up in a small, blue-collar, all-white town and I know how racists think and talk… and how they talk when non-whites are around. Don’t hold up a skunk and tell me it’s a racoon. Like I said, I’ve been around.
And now, of course, the Dodo Bird Preservation Society, formerly known as the US Congress, and the head Dodo Bird, John Bonehead, have decided to file suit. This is what we pay our legislature for, folks…
Republicans have been backed into a corner; that seems to be their major objection to the presidents action. They’ve been forced to take some kind of action on immigration or appear to be the uncaring, unsympathetic, immoral pieces of shit they are who could care less about keeping families together. (Family values my ass). They’ve chosen the latter and insist the president is an emperor or king only to help mitigate the poorly chosen decision they’ve made.