By John Krull
TheStatehouseFile.com
INDIANAPOLIS – Just after President Obama announced that he was reforming America’s immigration policy through executive order, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, let loose a wail.
Boehner said Obama’s action made comprehensive immigration reform through congressional action much harder to achieve. He also called the president’s action illegal.
A Boehner spokesperson went even further, calling the president “Emperor Obama.†And other Republicans – including Indiana Gov. Mike Pence – have threatened to sue to overturn the president’s order.
Column by John KrullA lawsuit would be a brilliant political move for the GOP. Nothing says “family values†quite like going to court to separate children from their parents during the holiday season.
And, by trying to deport parents of children who are U.S. citizens, that is exactly what Republicans would be doing.
As for the “Emperor Obama†nonsense: Well, as president, Barack Obama is the chief law enforcement official for the United States and prosecutorial discretion is a well-established legal principle.
More to the point, Obama has used executive orders less often than any president going back to Chester Arthur. Ronald Reagan issued 50 percent more of them than Obama. And Calvin Coolidge – now often cited by small-government conservatives as a model of presidential self-restraint – issued seven times as many executive orders as this president has.
Then there’s the silliness of Boehner’s complaint that the president has made immigration reform much more difficult.
How, pray tell?
What legislative power did the House Speaker have at the beginning before the president spoke that he does not have now?
What, given that Senate already has passed a bipartisan immigration reform package that the president has endorsed, other than Boehner’s own fear that he’ll lose support with House Republicans has stopped and continues to stop him from acting?
The reality is that there is nothing preventing John Boehner and other enraged Republicans from dealing with immigration other than their determination to place their short-term political goals above the long-term interests of their party – and, yes, the nation.
The fact that Boehner and his howling chorus are behaving like school kids isn’t the only thing that’s tiresome about this episode.
It’s that they don’t even behave like smart school kids.
Ever since Barack Obama was elected president six years ago, Republicans have said, over and over again, they wanted to “take him on†and “fight him every inch of the way.â€
Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, famously said that his caucus’s highest priority wasn’t national security, job creation or improving education, but making sure that Barack Obama was a one-term president.
Along the way, they’ve called the president of the United States – aka “Emperor Obama†– everything but a child of God.
Most school children know that, if you run around the playground calling another kid names, screaming that you want to fight and pushing him every chance you get, there’s a chance he’ll swing back.
That’s just what happened here.
After getting beat up in the mid-term elections, Barack Obama finally figured out that Republicans don’t like him, won’t work with him and intend to keep pushing him. So, he hit the Republicans right in the mouth.
And, surprise, surprise, Boehner and his GOP boutique brawlers have discovered two things that generations of school kids learned much earlier in life.
Fighting involves getting hit as well as hitting the other guy – and getting hit isn’t much fun.
That’s why smart school kids tend to fight only when there’s no other option.
Given that Boehner, McConnell and the other Republican marshmallow maulers seem to have skipped over that important lesson about settling their differences like school kids, I’ll help them out with this little bit of advice.
Whining only makes it worse.
It’s not only undignified, but it just tells the other guy how and where to hit you so it hurts the most.
John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism, host of “No Limits†WFYI 90.1 Indianapolis and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.
Both sides of this issue are playing politics and neither side really cares about those coming across the border, border security nor the economic impact amnesty will have on our country. Each side wants amnesty their way, and yes, there are those of us who don’t think amnesty is a good idea. I think its ridiculous to think that if an illegal alien were deported, who had children born here, that we’d want the family divided. If the kids aren’t of age, they go back with their parents. If, at some point in the future, those children want to return to America, they could. I don’t see the problem with that. We have OTMs coming across our border that are unaccounted, and those are from organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah as well as Chinese nationals. Where’s our border security? By executive fiat, border agents are prevented from doing their job, and this is fine? So it was okay for the administration to send invitations into Latin America to have unaccompanied children come to America with a promise that they could stay? This is heartless and cruel, and using these people as political pawns, and as we know, pawns are expendible.
It’s time that both sides put on their big boy pants and stop thinking about their legacy or hanging on to their little kingdoms at the expense of the country.
I understand separating children from their parents during holidays doesn’t show “family values” but why did the parents separate themselves from their children to begin with?
Whinning about a whiner ??? Classic ! Doesn’t get much better nor telling than this.
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