Karl Rove approaches Morrisesque** levels of disingenuousness declaring that President Obama “has become a minor actor on Capitol Hill” because ” bipartisan groups of senators and congressmen are doing the difficult work of writing detailed immigration rreform legislation.” That’s silly. During the 1996 welfare reform debate, Bill Clinton stayed publicly out of the action (because the White House feared that if he endorsed any plan the Republicans would simply move the goalposts and ask for more). That didn’t mean he was a minor actor, or that his aides weren’t involved in the process, and it didn’t mean he wouldn’t claim credit for the legislation.
Republicans who think they can pass an immigration amnesty while dismissing the President’s role as minor–and somehow preventing him from crowing to Latinos about his achievement–are kidding themselves. …
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**- Here’s the disgraced ex-FOX pundit himself. If, in Morris’ latest fantasy world, “Latinos … were on the verge of voting Republican after 2004” but were semi-permanently alienated when Bush pushed for amnesty and triggered a GOP backlash, how dumb does that make Bush (and Rove’s) push for amnesty? Why not string the Latinos along, as Ronald Reagan did with the Christian Right on any numer of issues? …