Are they worse than the problems faced by other problems? I don't think so. But the job in the best of times is difficult and wide-ranging in its scope. It isn't President Obama's fault that the people voted for a man so monumentally unprepared to be president. (And I'm not here to complain about the American people who turned to Obama in desperation after the financial crisis struck late in the campaign. There is plenty of blame for the media which carried the candidate and the awful campaign run by McCain.) We must live with the president we have and not the president we wish we had. But--
You had to know there was a "but" after that introduction. But, as I've mentioned before, my sympathy for the president is pretty much negatively correlated with how long it has been since I've heard him speak on almoat any subject. His hyper-partisanship and misleading words always erase whatever sympathy has built up within me. His speech on immigration is a case in point:
Obama said opponents of immigration would never be happy, despite any tight controls that have been put in place.
"They wanted a fence," he said, to boos from the crowd, speaking in shirtsleeves on a hot, sunny day at a park within sight of the border. "Well, that fence is now basically complete."
"Maybe they'll need a moat. Maybe they'll want alligators in the moat," he said.
So on the one hand, after calling for discussions to solve the problem, he slams the Republicans as not wanting a solution--despite the obvious nature of his own 2012 campaign motivations for this speech.
Second, the idea that inputs are how you measure success rather than results is just amazing. So what if the fence is basically complete (it isn't, and even when it is finished it still won't cover the entire border)? Has what we have done so far solved the problem of illegal border crossings? If not, how can the president mock calls for doing more until the problem is solved? Spending money on a problem really isn't the same as solving the problem. Really.
Look, I'm generally pro-immigration. We are a nation of immigrants. But the notion that it is wrong--or God forbid, racist--to stop illegal immigration, to insist on limits to better assimilate newcomers, or to set the rules for how legal immigration can take place, is simply ridiculous.
I'm more than happy to open paths to citizenship for illegals. I support that because the last thing I want is to encourage an underclass of people who are separate from our broader society. I would never want to change our rules that say if you are born here--even to illegal parents--you are a citizen. But integrating these illegals can take place only after we've closed the door at our borders.
The partisan dishonestly of the president's speech (my take on the article--not Tapper's and Ryan's conclusion) on this important issue so early in the year by someone who doesn't even have a primary opponent, when you'd think he'd still be trying to be president of all of us rather than of only the people he needs to get a majority in the electoral college vote next year, is astounding.
With the collapse of the gaudy Trump balloon, the only Republican nominee who virtually guaranteed I'd vote for Obama next year is gone. I really could be persuaded to vote for Obama if he makes enough good war decisions and the courts or Congress gut domestic spending programs that I oppose. After all, there are isolationist Republicans, and foreign policy is my primary motivation in my votes at the national level. I've never voted for a Democrat for president, but that doesn't mean I'm an automatic.
But why should I be surprised that a man whose main experience is campaigning for office would be most comfortable campaigning? That's who he is. He has returned to his normal state.
UPDATE: Krauthammer puts it well:
The El Paso speech is notable not for breaking any new ground on immigration but for perfectly illustrating Obama’s political style: the professorial, almost therapeutic, invitation to civil discourse, wrapped around the basest of rhetorical devices — charges of malice compounded with accusations of bad faith. “They’ll never be satisfied,” said Obama about border control. “And I understand that. That’s politics.”
How understanding. The other side plays “politics,” Obama acts in the public interest. Their eyes are on poll numbers, political power, the next election; Obama’s rest fixedly on the little children.
Yeah. That's why listening to the president speak always lowers my sympathy for him.
