Political Irony

The GOP strategy against the president seems to be to throw everything at Obama to see if anything sticks. Even if the things you throw at him are contradictory. Obama is a socialist, but he is simultaneously a fascist. Obama is an ineffective president who has not delivered on his promised “hope and change”, but he is simultaneously a usurping dictator who is destroying the constitution.

The media seems to be playing along with this cynical game. Even the Christian Science Monitor had the following headline “Does ‘audacity of hope’ mean unchecked presidential power?” The article goes on to quote conservatives who compare Obama to Napoleon (as if Napoleon had to run for reelection or would have put up with our obstructionist Republican party).

The CSM is talking about Obama’s recent order to the immigration service to stop deporting illegal immigrants who were brought here as children, who pose no threat to the US, and are living productive lives here.

This is similar to some of the provisions of the “DREAM Act”, originally introduced into Congress by Republican Senator Orrin Hatch. Except the DREAM Act allowed some undocumented immigrants the apply for and receive permanent residency, which could then lead to citizenship, while Obama’s order simply stops deportation temporarily. Republicans have long been in favor of this and similar immigration reform. That is, until Obama was elected and they became the the “party of no”. After all, their stated top priority is to make Obama a one-term president, and passing immigration reform while Obama is president might make him look good.

I also question whether Obama’s action actually constitutes an abuse of presidential power. Obama is simply saying that we have limited resources to prosecute undocumented immigrants, and those resources are wasted going after children. After all, they had no intent to break the law (they were brought here as children), and they are leading productive, responsible lives. Some of them are even part of the US military — would you deport them after they have served (and offered their lives for) their country?

The conservative Republican attorney general of Utah (who is a Mitt Romney supporter) said it best: “Law enforcement makes decisions based on the resources available to them — until Congress acts, we’ll be left with too many people to deport. The administration is saying, `Here’s a group we could be spending our resources going after, but why? They’re Americans, they see themselves as Americans, they love this country.’ … You’re not giving [legal status] to the parents who came here. You’re giving it to the child who was brought here. That child didn’t get to choose.”

More than once in my life I’ve had a crime committed against me (including having my car stolen and my house broken into), and the police have told me that they didn’t have the resources to do anything about it. I’m sure many people reading this have had similar experiences. Obama is simply saying the same thing. Fiscal conservatives should be happy that he is not wasting government money on this. I’d certainly rather have them looking for the jerk who stole my car than deporting immigrant children.

“Team Romney is misspelling words all over the map. They misspelled America, they misspelled the word official, they misspelled Reagan… I think we are going to find out that Mitt is actually dyslexic and his name is Tim.” – Bill Maher

“Both Obama and Mitt Romney went on the Country Music Television Awards. And I’m trying to figure out who has less in common with the country music fan, a Mormon who doesn’t drink or cheat, or a black guy who’s skinny.” – Bill Maher

“This weekend President Obama’s daughter, Sasha, will turn 11 years old. Sasha didn’t ask Obama for a present — you know, because she’s still waiting for him to deliver the gifts he promised three birthdays ago.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Remember when Obama was campaigning? Didn’t he say he was going to close Guantanamo Bay? Didn’t he say that? Apparently, he just meant for renovations.” – Jay Leno

“Obama had a big fundraiser for the gay and lesbian elite here in Hollywood. He was introduced by Ellen and did a really dirty joke. Michelle Obama had gone Ellen’s show and had a push-up contest with Ellen and won it. The president said, ‘Ellen claims Michelle didn’t go all the way down.’ Hey, who’s the potty mouth here, Mr. President? You can take my million, but don’t fuck with my act.” – Bill Maher

“In Greece, the unemployment rate has risen to 22%. The solution to the problem was to raise taxes on the rich, according to the Greek president Barack Obama-opolis.” – Jay Leno

“That’s one nice thing I got to say about George W. Bush, he never visited. For eight years it was like being passed over by the Angel of Duh.” – Bill Maher (regarding traffic in Los Angeles when Obama is in town)

“The effort to recall Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin failed. This is the worst thing to happen to organized labor in America since the invention of Mexicans.” – Bill Maher

“Gov. Rick Scott in Florida is purging the voter roles. It’s so over the line that the county election supervisors are refusing to comply. And Gov. Scott said, ‘Hey, we just want to remove people in Florida who are either felons, deceased, or here illegally.’ Which in Florida leaves only 12 people.” – Bill Maher

“In an event celebrating her 25th anniversary of being elected to Congress, Nancy Pelosi revealed that the ghost of past feminist leaders spoke to her at her first White House meeting as speaker. In a related story, doctors now say, ‘Yes, Botox can cause hallucinations.'” – Jay Leno

In the British inquiry into Rupert Murdoch and his newspapers, former conservative prime minister John Major testified under oath that Murdoch demanded that the government change its policy toward becoming part of the European Union or else his papers would oppose Major in the upcoming election. Major declined to change the policy and sure enough, three months later lost the election.

To those people who think Murdoch’s media empire works for the conservatives (e.g., that Fox News works for the Republicans), note that he didn’t hesitate to bring down a conservative government when they didn’t meet his demands.

What I take away from this is that it is completely unacceptable for one media company to have that much power over any government. Such power will always eventually be abused. The size of news organizations should be strictly limited so that one company does not own a controlling interest at any level (national or local).

We used to have laws in this country that limited media ownership, but they have been swept away in recent years.

The British situation is especially ironic, because Murdoch is not even a British citizen. He is a foreign entity who wields enormous political power there, and whose news organizations have repeatedly been found guilty of breaking the law. As Major put it in his testimony:

I think the sheer scale of the influence he is believed to [have] whether he exercises it or not, is an unattractive facet in British national life, and it does seem to me an oddity that in a nation which prides itself on one man, one vote, we should have one man, who can’t vote, with a large collection of newspapers and a large share of the electronic media outlets. … Power without hindrance is bound to be poorly exercised.

© David Horsey

This comic is referring to a recent ad from the Romney campaign, which uses an out-of-context quote from Obama saying “The private sector is doing fine.” and using it to claim that Obama is “out of touch”.

But not only was the quote taken out of context (Obama was pointing out that the private sector is doing better than the public sector, which the GOP is openly trying to drown) but even out of context it is essentially true. Corporate profits are at an all-time high and the stock market is doing as well as it was before the Great Recession.

But the bigger issue is that the flood of money in this year’s election is going to exacerbate the trend toward negative campaigning. As the cartoonist David Horsey put it in his commentary accompanying this comic:

We are at the stage in this campaign when both sides are fervently engaged in the task of creating a negative image of the opposing candidate. Whether that image is accurate or false is beside the point. This is how the game is played in 21st century U.S. politics. The odd twist this time is that each campaign has latched onto the same point of attack: “This guy is out of touch!”

The ads from both the Romney and Obama camps are good enough to make the bad image stick, but what if it sticks to both candidates? Do twin images cancel each other out or merely debase even further this shabby exercise in democracy through character assassination?