The Senate's redoubtable Dr. No, aka Tom Coburn (R-Planet Xanax), took himself off to USA Today's Capitol Download to warn his fellow Americans that President Obama's planned executive action on immigration will not only set Republican hair afire but could very well bring down the Republic, to boot:
The country's going to go nuts, because they're going to see it as a move outside the authority of the president, and it's going to be a very serious situation. You're going to see — hopefully not — but you could see instances of anarchy. ... You could see violence.
And none of us really want that, do we?
Coburn accuses Obama of acting like "an autocratic leader that's going to disregard what the Constitution says and make law anyway." He says changes in immigration policy require passage by Congress, not just the president's signature.
Well, not really, but nobody seriously expects a US senator to know all of the ins and outs of our legal system, do we?
"Instead of having the rule of law handling in our country today, now we're starting to have the rule of rulers, and that's the total antithesis of what this country was founded on," Cassius Coburn says. "Here's how people think: Well, if the law doesn't apply to the president ... then why should it apply to me?"
Evidently Coburn anticipates citizen activists teaching a lawless president a lesson by acting out lawlessly . . . ?? Stranger yet, he seems to think that it's entirely plausible that a population made up almost exclusively of immigrants or immigrants' offspring will move to violently overthrow the government and force it to deport more immigrants??
Of course, Coburn's prediction is solidly rooted in historical precedent . . . the memories of blood in the streets, rioting and insurrection following President Reagan's imperious executive over-reach on immigration, as well as the constitutional crisis precipitated by George W Bush's immigration-reform-by-fiat are still fresh in the wounded psyche of liberty-loving Americans.
As Coburn seems to know, nothing else-- not poverty, injustice, inequality -- sets off American civic indignation like perceived encroachment on the legislative branch by the executive. God knows Congress has done everything in its considerable power to advance immigration reform via standard practice. Testimony to that are the stacks of comprehensive immigration reform bills brought by Congress to the president's desk, over the last few years, only to be subjected to the "terrible, swift sword" of Obama's veto pen.
I know that Republicans really, really hate being outsmarted by this uppity, un-American president that was somehow elected, then inexplicably re-elected despite all of the built-in societal safeguards to prevent such an unlikely event but, seriously, folks? you're needlessly embarrassing yourselves before you even get a crack at demonstrating your mad governance skills.
Maybe you all ought to contemplate Dr Coburn's "if I ruled the world" advice to the President and, if the shoe fits . . .
If I were in his office, I'd say, if you want to have a successful second term, dig down, swallow your pride, get what you can get, compromise on everything you can for the best interests of the country. Bring us back together.
Meanwhile, my plan for weathering the dark and stormy aftermath of executive apocalypse? I think, I'll let a smile be my umbrella and trust to the paralyzing indifference that the vast majority of Americans feel toward the cacophonous background noise of American political theater.
That, and college football, should effectively stem the revolution.
