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Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) doesn't necessarily have a problem with President Obama's new immigration policy on substantive grounds, but he's getting a little whiney about the process. Indeed, the far-right senator is throwing in the towel on his watered-down DREAM Act and blaming the president for its demise.
For the past three months, Rubio has been trying to craft a bill that would give legal residency to young immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally by their parents.
But on Friday, Obama essentially turned Rubio's undrafted proposal into an executive rule made by his administration. Rubio and other Republicans say Obama overstepped his bounds.
"When the president ignores the Congress, ignores the Constitution and forces a policy like this down the throat of the American people, it's going to make it harder to have a conversation like that," Rubio said. "It's going to make it harder to elevate the debate."
The Republican senator also complained yesterday that the White House "never called" to talk to Rubio about the proposal Rubio never introduced.
I can appreciate the ways in which Obama has made Rubio's life more complicated -- the Floridian hoped to be attached to one credible idea, and the president beat him to it -- but this whining is politically unseemly and substantively foolish.
For one thing, Obama didn't ignore the Congress or the Constitution. The president has pressed Congress to act for years -- the DREAM Act even had the votes of the majority of the House and the majority of the Senate -- but Republicans refused to allow so much as a vote. When Obama got tired of waiting, he decided to use his prosecutorial discretion in a way that even conservatives consider legitimate.
For another, Obama isn't forcing a policy "down the throat of the American people," either. The president's position is overwhelmingly popular and enjoys bipartisan support. Obama chose to help hundreds of thousands of families that have waited for fairness and decency, and the American mainstream is glad the president took this action.
But I'm especially amazed to hear Rubio whine about Obama's move making it "harder to have a conversation." A conversation about what? Congressional Republicans' refusal to do anything?
Democrats and Republicans originally worked together on the DREAM Act, before the GOP's far-right base demanded the party drop its support. Democrats and Republicans also originally worked together on comprehensive immigration reform, before right-wing activists vetoed that, too.
In other words, Obama and Democrats have been engaged in a "conversation" for several years, and have been willing to accept concessions as part of a larger compromise. In return, Republicans moved to the right, abandoned positions they used to embrace, filibustered bills they helped write, and refused to consider any kind of cooperation on the issue.
Even Rubio's watered-down version of the DREAM Act -- which he never got around to introducing -- had been rejected by his own party. Mitt Romney's chief advisor on immigration policy said Rubio's elusive plan was a non-starter, and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said the Florida senator shouldn't even bother with his bill because it couldn't pass.
And Rubio would have us believe Obama ruined the process and made bipartisan progress impossible? Seriously?
Ezra Klein had an excellent summary of the bigger picture: "To recap: When Democrats endorse ideas Republican pioneered, that doesn't lead to bipartisanship. When they endorse ideas Republicans currently support, that doesn't lead to bipartisanship. And when they act on their own, that's too partisan. So what, exactly, are they supposed to do?"
That's a rhetorical question, of course, but what they're supposed to do is take advantage of every available opportunity to move the policy forward, working around Republicans whenever possible. That's exactly what Obama did on Friday.
Rubio isn't whining because he had high hopes for legislative progress; Rubio's whining because the president did something clever and unexpected.
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Every word that comes out of the mouth of a 21st Century Republican politician falls into one of two over-arching narratives:
1) Those so-called "victims" you Democrats claim to be so concerned about had it coming!
2) I am/we are the real victims here!
Shorter Marc Rubio:
If only Rubio had a way to introduce legislation for consideration by Congress...there must be a way.
It's not going on Fox and having a temper tantrum. There must be some other way that Rubio can get Congress to consider his own DREAM-ish act.
Oh yeah, he's a !@#&*@ Senator who can write bills and introduce them into the Senate. He's a @#*$& Senator who can work with leadership in the House to pass a bill.
I think the President is tired of waiting on these Republicans to do anything, they're too slow. There's a race going on now Rubio, so whoever does more for the American People, and wins their votes, legitimitely wins.You gotta get up pretty early in the morning to outsmart this President and that won't help you either. By now, the Republicans should be able to understand that the President is cleaning up their mess, taking out the garbage, finishing things they didn't even start, uncovering fraud and waste,and discovering the truth behind a curtain of lies and conspiracys. He's only half way there and he's accomplished more in 3 years what these fools wish they had the intellegience to even fathom. We should have started electing men of diversity a long time ago. It could have saved us a lot of money and lives. Well, there's a time for every season, a moment which gives us reason.
So Marco Rubio the little crybaby snot bubbler is mad at the President.So What!He could have introduced his bill earlier but did'nt.I'm sure the tea partiers in congress would have embraced his plan with open arm's.In a pig's a$$ they would have.Congress does nothing except dream up way's to supress women's and voter's right's.Republican's like to say are you better off than you were four yrs.ago,I would ask are you better off than you were two yrs.ago when they took the rein's of congress. Hell No!
If I never hear the phrase "shoved down the throat" again, it will still be too soon!
In his limited public statements about this issue, Romney's said that the President should've worked with Congress...I wonder if a reporter will ask him (or the campaign) about Rubio's decision.
Heard about how the Mormon religion occurred with a light and a character called Maroni (not sure if spelled right) and told the founder about certain things. Well unfortunately, when referring to the light makes this whole story full of crap. Since first of all that is not how the light works and doesn’t even come close to anything spiritual about it at all. But the more truthful matter of it all comes closer to a religious extremist of hatred and a pure racist making up stories to justify his cause of nonsense and lies.
Yeah,,, this reminds me of something,, yeah,,, that would be the world's biggest stupid thing man has ever built.. I don't know if the numbers are right but, I'll bet I'm pretty close on the ratios.. We are going to spend 10 billion dollars on a 2 billion dollar wall between us and Mexico so we can save 1 billion dollars on health care and less than minimum wage jobs to illegals..
This wall will not stop the drug trade, won't stop the kidnappings, and certainly has nothing to do with terrorism. Kidnappings? Phoenix has a problem with illegals walking across the border, gathering up our young'uns, and herding them back across the border,, ON FOOT?? and this is one of the foremost reasons we are building this stupid wall??
Both the U.S. and Mexico are christian, capitalist, and democratic. So what's the problem we need to build a wall between us? Could we send in our army and deal with the drugies? Can we tell Mexico to take care of it's own poor? Sure we can. But we won't because those solutions are Socialist solutions that spotlight the failures of capitalism, etc.
So,, the next step after building the wall will be legislation to shoot and kill folks too close to the wall, then shoots illegals wherever,, and then,,.
Soon one of the best jobs a poor person will be able to get is joining the army and shooting other poor people.
Oh WAAAAAHHHHHH. Put your big girl panties on Marco.
Per the Ed Show last night...
This is not an executive order – it’s a “deferred action by the department of homeland security”. It’s a power granted to homeland security under gw bush. “The bush administration formally delegated the power to grant deferred action to DHS agencies in 2003.”
396,906 have been deported – that’s a record number of deportations.
The size of the US border patrol has more than doubled since 2004 to 20,000. He has increased enforcement and increased the resources to border patrol. Protecting the border first just as demanded by the right.
Obama, once again, has done everything the right has rallied for, and yet they still fail to do anything constructive. Game, set, match Obama.
Now that's rich! The GOP has not been interested in "elevating" the debate since Obama became president!
Rachel, this is completely off topic. I am watching your show of 19th June 2012 and you seem perplexed that the Republicans are obsessed with abortion when the main issue in this election year should be the economy. I think it makes sense when you realise the rights biggest fear: being a minority in 'their own country'. They want to keep America white. Therefore their big issues are eliminating immigration/border control, private prisons so they can lock up whomever they please (predominantly blacks and latinos), and removing the right for women to get abortions. They need those white babies eventual votes. If my theory is right, this is why they are removing sex education from schools because they KNOW that it will lead to MORE teenage pregnancies and more white babies. The right look ahead and, reading the demographic data, realise that they (WASPs) will become a minority in a few short decades. The election of Obama focused their minds on their 'losing our country' narrative hence the response - a campaign for America to have more white babies. As sinister as it sounds, it makes perfect sense from a certain racist point of view.
This is the part of Rubio's whine fest that I get the biggest kick out of:
Marco Rubio:
"The president's is a two-year solution that expires after two years and does not really solve this in a lasting way. It just gets him through the election. ... The White House never called us about this. No one reached out to us and told us this was on its way. "
Can you imagine what a headache this guy would be to date? .... "But I thought we had a good time. I had a good time and you told me you had a good time so how come you never called? I've been sitting by the phone waiting for the phone to ring.... And NOTHING!!! "
Time for the GOP to re-diaper their JUNIOR Senator.
I think that this is actually a tactically brilliant move from the Obama administration on several levels. First, it's just good policy. Second, it makes Romney's best pick for veep look weak. PotUS is burning both ends of the wick on immigration, and it's going to be a good score for him in November.
You know, Mittens said he only needs 50.1%. The problem, for his campaign and his ambitions, is that no one finds his deer-in-the-headlights, Fox-News-only, I-know-people-who-own-NFL-teams demeanor charming besides other Fox News watching robots who also have no personalities.
I guess what I'm getting at is that the press keeps saying that Romney is playing a rope-a-dope strategy, keeping the Obama campaign swinging. The problem is that the rope-a-dope only works when the punches are body-blows. When your opponent is raining down blows on your head, it's not a rope-a-dope: it's an ass-kicking.
Shorter GOP: We wouldn't have done anything because it would have given Obama a WIN but Obama has made it harder for us to do nothing because he has made us look bad.
RubioHey Marco! How about a little cheese with that whine?