Another Go Round between the Two Camps of Self-Promoting Narcissists in Washington DC — Immigration Reform — the Mechanics of Intentionally Never Getting Anything Constructive Done

© 2014 Peter Free

 

15 November 2014

 

 

Timing is often revealing

 

President Obama, having witnessed the widely anticipated Republican landslide during the 2014 midterm elections, has belatedly decided to make an issue of immigration reform —

 

 

(a) after doing essentially nothing, when Democrats actually held sway in Congress

 

and

 

(b) after postponing (to after the 2014 elections) an April 2014 plan to deal with the problem on an Executive basis.

 

In other words, the President stalled leadership, until such time as it is least likely to successfully benefit the people that it is allegedly intended to:

 

 

President Barack Obama plans to announce an overhaul of U.S. immigration policy through executive action that would shield up to 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation, the New York Times reported on Thursday.

 

Such a move will set up a showdown with Republicans, who have blocked Democrats' efforts in Congress to reform immigration laws and warned the president not to take unilateral action on immigration.

 

© 2014 Bill Trott and Doina Chiacu, Obama plan would shield up to 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation, Reuters via MSN (13 November 2014)

 

 

In the other political camp

 

Republicans have been diddling with immigration solely to obstruct Democrats, without the slightest intent to:

 

 

(a) benefit immigrants and the businesses that depend on them

 

or

 

(b) our arguably human and economic national interest in fostering diversely strong liberty.

 

 

Both partisan tribes like to fight . . .

 

. . . for no other reason than to maintain the inflow of politically biased money and, with it, their continued presence in office.

 

 

The moral? — By our actions, are we revealed

 

Though I sympathize much more with our embattled President, than I do with the Republican Party’s unending supply of vicious boneheads, I do have to admit that this latest flaunting of the poorly timed and threatened use of executive power exposes the Commander in Chief’s often cynically manipulative hypocrisy.

 

Had he actually wanted to accomplish something on the immigration front, he would have acted a long time ago. Today, his grandstanding is just another go round of the Chief Narcissist’s pretend-leading.

 

The most likely result of this foolery, if the President follows through on his promise to act in spite of Congress, is going to be a lot of unnecessary and potentially dangerous litigation about the balance of power between the Executive and Legislative branches.

 

As a lawyer himself, the President should know better. It is an indication of his self-serving ambition that he sets this legitimate concern about generating bad legal precedent aside and acts anyway — long after the “bus” (of his own making) left the depot.

 

It is true that the President’s executive power ploy is going to rouse his political party’s base in preparation for 2016’s presidential election, just as he probably forecasts. But it is almost certainly not going to benefit (a) immigrants (due to an eventual backlash) or (b) the nation’s interest in preserving our alleged democracy.

 

The President may be a tragic figure, caught between terrible choices and insurmountable obstruction, but he is also an increasingly exasperating one.

 

The man’s undeniable genius (for some things) appears predominantly to have been used to play short-sighted games with serious long-term situations. His idiotically unworkable military response to ISIL is another example of that.