There is a fascinating political shift occurring in Washington this weekend after President Barack Obama walked back from this pledge to act by the end of summer on his unilateral immigration actions and said that he will now wait until after the elections. The move has been openly discussed as an effort to support struggling Democratic candidates who are facing huge opposition to the immigration proposals and are leery of the President taking any action given his own record low polling numbers (which now stand at 38 percent according to Gallup). Various Democratic candidates have been complaining that they are losing ground due to the immigration proposal and that Obama’s pledge could further worsen the currently bleak picture for losses in Congress (and possibly losing both houses to the GOP). While the White House originally saw the proposal as a no-lose proposition and popular with the base, it has proven far less popular around the country, particularly in battleground states. Polls show far greater opposition than support for the proposal. Immigration advocates are denouncing the delay as putting “politics over people.”
The thrust of the decision is that the changes will be made but not until after voters are no longer able to express their opposition in the upcoming elections. That would seem to be a highly insulting proposition for voters, but it has not been treated as anything other than politics as usual by the media. It is a curious approach for a President who ran on the change slogan like “Time for A Change” and “Change You Can Believe In.” It is a “change you can count on [but not vote on]” approach to politics.
Two White House officials said that the move was meant to insulate Democrats from the public backlash to the immigration moves. This is in sharp contrast to the June 30th Rose Garden speech where Obama declared that he had directed Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Attorney General Eric Holder to give him recommendations for executive action by the end of summer and that he would “adopt those recommendations without further delay.”
My views on unilateral presidential action are well known and have little to due to the merits of these issues (Indeed, I agree with some of the President’s policies and objectives). However, what continues to amaze me is the character of modern American politics. Here you have politicians openly discussing how to avoid voter wrath by withholding action in a major area. In reality, I think some GOP leaders are doing the same thing in light of the recent defeat of Cantor and the clear success of new candidates running against the immigration proposals (while the Chamber of Congress and industry interests are pressuring for legalization as beneficial to business). I simply find it remarkable that politicians can get away with openly withholding proposals to evade a public backlash but promising that, as soon as the voters go home, they will move on the proposals. It strikes me as a tad duplicitous, but then again little makes sense to me in American politics anymore.
Source: AP
Yup Leej, this thread quickly turned into Obama bashing, not on the merits, but his “arrogance”, his walk, the way he runs. Assertions that he isn’t the ‘legitimate’ POTUS, etc etc. this type of petty criticism actually makes the real criticisms look less serious, because really, who can take anyone seriously who complains about someone’s physical mannerisms, like running, who can take birthers seriously? It’s gotten beyond ridiculous.
Aridog youre wrong.
Hagel was there http://www.stripes.com/maj-gen-harold-greene-receives-full-burial-honors-at-arlington-1.298353
“Secretary Chuck Hagel attended and met with the family.” but maybe you think stars and stripes is a left wing media source.
You have got to stop parroting the right lies, maybe check the sources now and again(?)
Thanks Annie. You know when you don’t have legitimate complaints then you go to the “he runs up and down the stairs and how dare he do that!”
nick:
he is one of the most effective presidents in my lifetime. I am in awe of his abilities. I wish conservatives/libertarians could do the same for our philosophy.
People who think he is stupid should wake the fuk up.
Nick, what politician is not always in campaign mode. Even Romney, lost 2 times the presidency but acting like he is running again (and pundit this am said he may be the best the GOP has to offer given McDonell conviction, Christy Bridgegate +, etc,
He’s just sassy. How dare he saunter and how dare he jog jauntily up and down those stairs. Leej, excellent article, so true.
Little gestures matter. Our President’s administration sends no one to Major General Meyers funeral ceremony, with full military honors after his death in Afghanistan, but did send a couple representatives to Michael Brown’s funeral.
Our President does not lack self esteem, albeit false self esteem. He’s always in campaign mode. To still have that cocky saunter and self assured speech after all his failures shows just how disengaged even SUPPORTERS say he is. The cultists will defend till the end. Body language is how you understand people. So folks like rafflaw that are incredulous we’re analyzing how this President walks, talks, etc. shows either they don’t realize 80% of all communication is nonverbal, or they’re worshipping a cult figure.
So he is arrogant because he can run up stairs and there is no way he could have gotten into college on his own merits, yet alone Harvard Law as leejcarroll stated above. Now, if you want to criticize him for continuing and expanding the intelligence community’s ability to spy on Americans, I can agree with you. But claiming without facts that he is stupid, or a stoner and couldn’t get into college and law school without affirmative action is just wrong.
The reason that President Obama has been able “to duck this” is that opponents of affirmative action realize that if he was in fact a beneficiary, he is perhaps the ideal example of the policy gone right. His admission to Harvard Law School demonstrably wasn’t tainted by the notion that he didn’t belong there: He made sure of that by graduating magna cum laude, his peers selected him editor of the Harvard Law Review, and classmates and professors gush on and on about how impressed they were by the guy. Then there’s the institution’s perspective. Harvard University is obsessed with training future leaders. In Barack Obama, they got a United States Senator … and we haven’t even gotten to the obvious argument, as offered by Matt Yglesias:
If it’s true that Barack Obama couldn’t get into college without a boost from affirmative action, then the fact that he later went on to become President of the United States of America would surely go to show that affirmative action is a good idea! The concern that super-talented people were getting locked out of opportunities is exactly the sort of thing affirmative action is supposed to resolve.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/01/20/timep.affirm.action.tm/
If visitors to this blog were educated about how the world really works, they would know that O is a creature of the CIA – which spends your money to expand and protect the interests of the elite. Thus, it’s folly to think O will take or propose measures to end illegal immigration and slow the rate of legal immigration. Just as the U.S. (not US) created and still supports Al Qaeda and GWB’s favorite Patsy (Osama),it also supports ISIS. Expensive propaganda keeps the lid on the coup de’tat of 11/22/63, the Apollo Moon landings hoax, and even the fact that FDR knew in advance that Japan was going to bomb Pearl Harbor ( in response to the U.S. oil embargo which was seen as a direct act of aggression on a sovereign nation.
Nothing has changed. And it won’t.
Thks Raff, someone posted it to my FB page so can’t take credit for finding it)
Squeeky lets see promised health care reform and we have it. Promised to bring back economy and we have it. promised ti o end Iraq war we have it (and not having it go back in because Bush said Bin Laden didn’t interest him giving the rise to ISIS etc etc.)
and someone wrote up the page about the President being an affirmative action entry into college.
Gee you have a problem with Bush being a true affirmative action Yale student:
In the fall of 1963, George W. Bush was a senior at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., facing the same dilemma confronting his 232 classmates: where to apply to college. He had never made the honor roll, and his verbal score on the SAT was a mediocre 566. Although popular among his classmates, he was neither an exceptional athlete nor did he possess any particularly outstanding extracurricular talents. Looking over his record, Andover’s dean of students suggested that the young Mr. Bush consider applying to schools other than Yale, the alma mater of his father and grandfather.
But unbeknownst to the dean and Mr. Bush, Yale had quietly changed its admissions policy toward alumni sons during the very months when his application was under consideration. As the number of applicants to Yale increased, the administration decided that it could no longer afford to treat all legacy applicants equally. Instead, it would differentiate among alumni sons, giving extra preference on the basis of the family’s contribution to Yale and its importance to American society.
As the son of a prominent Texas oilman then running for the United States Senate – and the grandson of a United States senator from Connecticut who had recently served as a member of the Yale Corporation – George W. Bush was no ordinary applicant. In April 1964, he was accepted to Yale – unlike 49 percent of all alumni sons who applied that year. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/13/opinion/13karabel.html?pagewanted=print&position=&_r=0
George W. Bush is all for diversity, he explained last week, but he doesn’t care for the way they do it at the University of Michigan. The Administration has asked the Supreme Court to rule the Michigan system unconstitutional because of the scoring method it uses for rating applicants.
“At the undergraduate level,” said Bush, “African-American students and some Hispanic students and Native American students receive 20 points out of a maximum of 150, not because of any academic achievement or life experience, but solely because they are African American, Hispanic or Native American.”
If our President had the slightest sense of irony, he might have paused to ask himself, “Wait a minute. How did I get into Yale?” It wasn’t because of any academic achievement: his high school record was ordinary. It wasn’t because of his life experience–prosperous family, fancy prep school–which was all too familiar at Yale. It wasn’t his SAT scores: 566 verbal and 640 math.
They may not have had an explicit point system at Yale in 1964, but Bush clearly got in because of affirmative action. Affirmative action for the son and grandson of alumni. Affirmative action for a member of a politically influential family. Affirmative action for a boy from a fancy prep school. These forms of affirmative action still go on. http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/01/20/timep.affirm.action.tm/
Well, I haven’t seen any evidence of Obama’s alleged “great intellect.” I have seen his utter lack of ability to manage his way out of a paper bag. He gives a really nice speech, as long as you don’t have any expectation of him doing anything he promises to do. Frankly, I think he is a stoner.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Great article leejcaroll!
Now we are criticizing the way the President runs up the stairs? Wow!
http://kstreet607.com/2013/06/21/a-canadians-view-on-our-disrespect-of-president-obamas-presidency/
A Canadian’s View On Our Disrespect Of President Obama’s Presidency
Maybe the president has changed the tactic at least partly because he is sick and tired of being the target of the right. Look at ISIS, The right, Paul among many others, McCain etc the president is weak he should have sent our troops back into the area and put boots on the ground. Funny how they haven’t come out and said you know the president was right to use diplomacy and now Nato is on board and it is not just the IUS who is fighting against what is not merely a US problem. Same with Russia. Maybe he decided I need a break before they come afer me for his but it wouldn’t matter had he made it an exec action and taken charge the forces against him would be just as string as they are now. Maybe like the president, everyone, including the professor, should stop their knee jerk reactions and take the time to think a little bit first.
Annie. facts are irrelevant to those who hate this president.
Funny how he is being sued for taking executive action then the repubs said to him take executive action on immigration and now that he is not, at least right now, that is an awful thing for him to do. This man cannot win no matter what he does (as we see by the ignoring of the good things that have come out of ths administration, such as ending the worst – recession brought to you by Bush Bush’s second recession during his residency – and I know now those who say how dare you blame Bush for Isis, lying us into war, it is Bush who set us op to come out of the recession. The spinning that goes on from the right (and the left spin too so I am not saying they are innocent, the way the system is set up spin is what gets you the win, the dems are just less good at it then the right, at least with getting their folks on the right to take the spin, lies, exaggerations and distortions, hook line and sinker.
John: regarding Ben Gazi. We should not have embassies in pirate territories. Nor should we allow Americans to travel there. We should pull out now in all of the pirate territories. Diplomacy only works if the pirate territory has evolved into a civilized nation state. East of Corfu the Ten Commandments Don’t Apply. These pirate territories are beyond the Pale. We cannot police the world. Therefore we cannot police any nation where we have an embassy and we certainly should not have an embassy in Ben Gazi. Or Gaza.
Is it just me or does anyone else feels suffiocated by the arrogance in the gait of our president and how he runs up and down the stairs of air force 1? With that kind of personality how can anyone expect him doing a good job ?
If the president ran our foreign policy with the same authority with which he runs up and down the stairs of AF1 I think I would be pretty happy.
The question is not how the president runs but does he have a layup to go with it.
What’s wrong with the way he runs anyway?
OBAMA DELAYED ACTION ON BENGHAZI
UNTIL WELL AFTER THE AMBASSADOR
AND THREE AIDES WERE DEAD.