Go It Alone – Later
In June the president said that since Congress refused to act on immigration he’d do it himself, just like the little red hen. He promised to go it alone before the end of summer.
On Saturday he announced that he would delay his go it alone strategy until after the November elections. Ezra Klein, usually more sympathetic than not toward Obama, says this is dumb.
Senator Mitch McConnell has a point when he says, “What’s so cynical about today’s immigration announcement is that the president isn’t saying he’ll follow the law, he’s just saying he’ll go around the law once it’s too late for Americans to hold his party accountable in the November elections.”
Klein wonders why Obama is delaying his end run around a Congress he accuses of delaying immigration reform.
This is the problem with the White House’s decision — and, to some degree, the way they’ve managed this whole issue. If these deportations are a crisis that merits deeply controversial, extra-congressional action, then it’s hard to countenance a politically motivated delay. If they’re not such a crisis that immediate action is needed, then why go around Congress in the first place?
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