I haven't written many Blogs lately because of my disdain for the direction of politics in this country. Watching the Sunday morning talk shows after Obama's executive order this week, it is clear that we are heading for two years of total dysfunction in Washington. It's been a long time since I have seen such alienation between the two political parties.
What infuriates me is Obama's rush to take this action. Let's look at the history: During his first two years Obama had full control of both houses of Congress and could have passed any immigration bill he wanted - they did nothing. Over a year ago the Senate passed an immigration bill with bipartisan support which included about ten Republican senators and the bill was sent to the House - they did nothing. One reason could be retaliation for the over 300 bills sent to the Senate that died on Harry Reid's desk without any discussion or chance of a vote. But all of that is now history.
This last election will now give the Republicans control of both the House and the Senate beginning in January and was a stunning defeat for the president and his administration. You would think that would result in some soul searching and move toward reconciliation.
Just think how the tone in Washington might be if Obama had called in the Republican leadership after the election, given them a copy of his proposed Executive Order on Immigration and said to them; "Look I want to work with you on this immigration issue and would prefer a permanent legislative solution. Here is my proposed executive order on immigration and I will not make any decision on it until March of 2015. Hopefully we can all agree on a law along these lines that would be acceptable to both parties, if not I will execute this order at the end of March". After six years of no action by both sides, why not a few more months with at least an effort to get DC working again the way the Founders envisioned.
But Obama rushed this executive order through with the arrogance and childish behavior of a spoiled brat that just got his ass kicked and decided "I will show you", and in the process has now poisoned the well of politics. Both sides share the blame here but Obama takes a good bit of it; after all isn't the job of a true leader to figure out how to get two opposing sides of an issue to come together. Obama continues to prove that he is the most feckless president this country has produced in a long time.
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3 comments:
People are polarized like never before. Politicians are simply a reflection of their constituency. Just look at some of our Facebook debates; they reflect the same polarization I see on other peoples' Facebook feeds and on discussion boards elsewhere on the Internet. No one wants to even consider that the opposing argument may actually have some merit. No one wants to entertain even the idea of compromise. So before we blame the politicians, we need to look in the mirror.
Well the point of this Blog is that there wasn't even an attempt by Obama to work together, when a few months delay would have at least given cooperation a chance.
Nice to see you're back writing again, Chuck...you've been missed! And, as always, you've hit the nail right on the head. I can't wait for January and the next two years to pass. Let's hope they can all work together to make things happen for a change. We shall see!
All the best...JB
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