Well, he did it. Even after he said he didn’t have the power to do it. Even after he said it would violate the Constitution to do it. He walked up to the well of goodwill. The well of possibilities. Possibilities that maybe, just maybe, this President who is just entering the final two years of his term in office, and the new Congress, which will be sworn in about six weeks from now, could find a way to put politics aside for once and try to work together in the best interests of the people of the United States of America. And he dumped into that well of possibilities, a bucket of foul-smelling, in-your-face, my-way-or-the-highway, scornful amnesty. What a waste.
Who will trust this guy now? He told us himself that what he did was not how the system was supposed to work. But he did it anyway. He told us himself that what he did was not how a democracy was supposed to function. But he did it anyway. And he told us that taking the action he ultimately took, would violate the Constitution. But he did it anyway.
And if you can’t trust a person, it’s virtually impossible to work with, or negotiate with, that person. And when that person who can’t be trusted is the President of the United States, it hurts us all.
There were, for example, a number of important issues it had been hoped the new Congress and President Obama might be able to negotiate in good faith. Among those possibilities were: tax reform, trade, the Keystone Pipeline, and executing the war against ISIS, to name but a few possibilities. President Obama’s executive amnesty order has unnecessarily and unwisely poisoned the well of cooperation, probably from now through the end of his presidency.
Weighing in over the weekend on Obama’s executive order was none other than Saturday Night Live in their opening sketch. Now SNL is usually a pretty reliable bastion of liberal thinking, typically bashing the likes of Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, John Boehner, both Bushes, you get the idea. When Barack Obama is portrayed, it’s usually as the cool-guy President vanquishing evil-intentioned Republicans. But this time they parodied “It’s Only a Bill” from a long ago kids TV program, Schoolhouse Rock. It’s well worth watching if you missed it, or even worth watching again, by clicking here.