Things That Make Me Chuckle

(Editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich and published 12/30/12 in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.  Click on image to enlarge and then kindly return.)

President Obama has taken the oath of office and been sworn in for his second term, has walked down Pennsylvania Avenue, and delivered what by all accounts was a fine speech.  Now the hard part comes:  presidenting.

He still has to deal with a split Congress, but this time around he has taken some pretty strong stands and has thrown multiple issues to be resolved into the mix.  Gun control, debt ceiling, deficit cuts, and immigration:  and those are just for openers.  The Republicans can't very well continue the blatant obstruction.  They failed in their drive to limit Obama to just one term and they lost ground in both the Senate and the House.  Even with their fear of being primaried by the Tea Party and extreme right wing, the saner members of the party know that they could lose the House in 2014 if they don't at least look like they're trying resolve the nation's problems in a rational, adult way.

And those saner members are beginning to speak out.  The latest blast is on immigration reform which would allow for some kind of  (gasp!) "amnesty."  The Los Angeles Times thought the story was significant enough that it was yesterday's front page headline in the print edition.

Traditional pillars of the Republican base, such as police groups, evangelical pastors and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have begun to push skeptical GOP lawmakers to change federal immigration laws to allow most of the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants to apply for legal status.

The issue has long been fought mostly between Republicans and Democrats. But the fate of a potential immigration overhaul may be determined by battles erupting inside the GOP.

"Now it's conservatives versus conservatives over how much immigration reform should happen," said Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration expert at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington that has advanced a free-market argument for opening up the immigration system. ...

Some national Christian organizations, law enforcement officials and business leaders have begun coordinating a national campaign to convince voters that immigration reform can be consistent with conservative values. Gathering in Washington last week, leaders of several groups said the goal is to help Republicans in Congress who fear being voted out of office if they support legal status for illegal immigrants.   [Emphasis added]

California Republicans have been begging for this for four years now.  They have been effectively shut out of state government because of the nasty stance on immigration their candidates felt compelled to take. And the demographics of the country, supported by the 2010 Census, have shifted.  There are more Latinos who are "legal" and who vote and who have been voting for Democrats because of the Republicans' refusal to be flexible when it comes to a path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented people already here.  And that's why the sudden interest in reform:

"Republicans need to change now because the country is changing," said Nowrasteh, the immigration expert at the Cato Institute. "It is self preservation as well."   [Emphasis added]

You think maybe?

Excuse me while I chuckle.