Last week, President Obama signed an executive order which will allow perhaps as many as a million young illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S. indefinitely, probably permanently, without fear of being deported. It's essentially the stalled Dream Act, but skips the actual law-making. This is another of my cousin Barry's "evolving" positions, and it's both a political calculation and a very good idea whose time has come. It may not be perfect, but hey, it's a start -- a step in the right direction.
Republican reaction was predictable. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer howled indignantly (but she's lunatic fringe and she can piss off). The rest of the GOP tried to embrace another of Romney's tortured policy reversals. In the primaries, Mitt was a hard-liner, saying all the illegals should just go "home". Today, the Glove refuses to take a position on Obama's order, saying instead that the Obama policy is not good enough, is short-term, and that instead, he'd have crafted a "permanent" solution.
Making the perfect the enemy of the good is a favorite GOP tactic of the moment. The economy is obviously improving, but the R's say it's not good enough, it's not perfect, so therefore it's just no good at all. Same now with immigration policy -- Obama's idea is good, but not good enough. The R's are not sure what their much better "permanent" solution will be, but they know it will take them a long time to come up with it (decades, maybe never), and it will probably require a tax cut for top-end income earners. Until then, their policy will be to continue to do fucking NOTHING! Because, really, the GOP wouldn't recognize "perfect" if it bit 'em in the ass.
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