When observing the folks who make up our political class, I'm often of the opinion that, somehow, reality is always just slightly distorted around them — as if they are in another, alternate universe altogether and they only seem to share space and time with us, but not in any meaningful way.
Not that I really needed it, but further evidence of this asynchronicity can be found in an item from the April 15 edition of the Washington Examiner newspaper entitled "A look deep inside the Gang of Eight bill — and how they'll sell immigration reform to conservatives".
The article, by Chief Political Correspondent Byron York, purports to lay out the strategy that will be used by the so-called "Gang of Eight", congressional leaders from both parties who have been instrumental in cobbling together some kind of bill being touted as "comprehensive immigration reform" that, I am reliably told, may amount to more than a thousand pages of legislation. Here's what Mr. York has to say about their strategy to sell this leviathan from the deep:
The short version of their case: The Gang proposal will be tough, tough, tough; it will be based on stringent requirements that security measures be in place before many of its provisions take effect; it will avoid the moral danger of rewarding those who entered the country illegally; and it will take care to protect the U.S. economy. And then there will be a final, mostly whispered, argument: If Congress doesn't pass the Gang bill, Barack Obama might unilaterally legalize the millions of illegal immigrants in the country today in an adult version of his Dream Act decree, doing so without securing the border in an act that would be impossible for a future president to reverse. (emphasis added)
As to the "tough, tough, tough", we'll wait and see, because most assuredly the devil will be in the details and I strongly suspect that this will be another case of "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!", to harken back to "The Wizard of Oz".
But to return to that last statement, that I've chosen to emphasize: Really! That's the best they can come up with?
We pause here for a quick cutaway to the emergency room, where a patient is being treated by his astounded physician. Patient to M.D.: "Well, doctor, he told me that if I didn't shoot myself in the foot, he would do it. So I did it myself."
Wow. So they may want to scare people with this nightmare scenario: "If we don't give the president what he wants, he'll take matters into his own hands and do it anyway — extralegally — so let's give him what he wants!"
How about this instead? Our congressional leaders could grow a backbone and, if the president does such a thing, they could sue him in court for infringing on the constitutional separation of powers, lawmaking being the exclusive prerogative of the Congress (certainly they have the standing to file such a suit) and, additionally, for an egregious abuse of discretion by his administrative agencies, which are at least nominally responsible for enforcing the nation's immigration's laws.
It's what they should have done when ICE Director John Morton issued his spurious "prosecutorial discretion" memorandum, and Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano followed up with her directive initiating the legally dubious "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals" program.
