The President on Immigration

by Little Miss Attila on May 12, 2011

Mickey Kaus:

[A]t what point does talking obsessively (big speech, constant White House meetings, etc.) about an issue that has been defeated politically, is going nowhere, and is tangential to the main crises of the day begin to lose Obama the far more numerous votes of independents, non-Hispanic Dems and Hispanics who care about something other than amnesty? Like a man declaiming at nobody on the streetcorner, he looks a bit disoriented.

. . . Swaddling the issue in “21st century economy” talk could be a savvy acknowledgment of this political peril–designed not to sell the issue to the majority but to at least detoxify it for the majority (while Obama rouses the minority). But that may be overthinking things. Maybe the White House is just plodding ahead dumbly.

{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }

ponce May 12, 2011 at 5:02 pm

I think Kaus said the same thing about the Health care Reform bill.

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John Hitchcock May 12, 2011 at 9:01 pm

And ObamaCare is still unpopular, with the majority of voters still wanting it repealed. Of course, leave it to ponce to make the wrong analogy for his wrong goals.

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ponce May 12, 2011 at 10:24 pm

The great presidents like Obama don’t govern by polls, John.

It’s why the fringe right and their corporate masters hate him so very, very much.

Reagan was the same way.

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John Hitchcock May 13, 2011 at 11:45 am

Prior to 2009, Carter was the worst president the US ever had. Obama changed all that. Obama and his socialist Cloward-Piven agenda is clearly the worst president the US has ever had.

Silver lining, the previous worst president gave us Reagan, the greatest president of the 20th Century. The new worst president could well give us another president of the caliber of Reagan.

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C Before E May 12, 2011 at 9:57 pm

Immigration is a tough one. Bush, even as a popular president with a Congressional majority, could not get a decent immigration bill passed. Maybe because he was essentially OK with immigrants and failed to notice that his party by and large hated them. George was a little absent-minded that way.

With America at large in political paralysis I don’t see much future for immigration reform. Could be Mr Obama is a little lost, but not as lost as Mr Kaus in his useless vanity Senate race.

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Brett May 13, 2011 at 6:48 am

Here’s the fact no one pays any attention: the peoples of all sovereign nations have the right to set their own immigration policy, on a scale from no immigration to open borders, without having to answer to anyone else. No one’s rights are violated by being denied the privilege of immigration.

Apparently half the country wants open borders with Mexico (I don’t believe these advocates really believe the population of the entire planet should move here), and the other half wants a rest for the purposes of assimilation of the recent tsunami.

I have a long memory. Reagan’s amnesty was passed with the promise that this was a one time thing, and both parties have been trying to break that promise for the last ten years.

This is why the governing classes should rarely be granted the power they demand. They cannot be forced to keep their word.

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