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Yet another sigh of how utterly hypocritical our partisan politics has become. From the AP (which will now be dissed as a bunch of liberals doing the bidding of the White House) comes this fact-based report:
President Barack Obama’s anticipated order that would shield millions of immigrants now living illegally in the U.S. from deportation is not without precedent.
Two of the last three Republican presidents — Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush — did the same thing in extending amnesty to family members who were not covered by the last major overhaul of immigration law in 1986.
There was no political explosion then comparable to the one Republicans are threatening now.
I’ve only given you the first three paragraphs of this story. Be sure to go to the link and read it all.
On Facebook, some folks have posted this and in comments some other folks are suggesting this will make a difference or change the narrative of those calling Obama a dictator and suggesting that if he does this he’d be deserving impeachment.
No, actually it won’t.
Because let’s be blunt:
Our politics now has little to do with real discussion or the use of facts.
It’s all about emotion and latching onto a political mantra and slogan, and repeating it over and over, getting it on like-minded radio or cable shows, putting it on blogs and then denouncing anyone who cites a fact as a liar or going to the tiresome tried and true attempt to discredit them: call them a liberal. That works because liberals have fled from that word and now insist on being called “progressives” (sort of like “used car” became “pre-owned car). By not defending the word, its a word now said sneeringly by talk show hosts and bloggers who don’t want to deal with an actual issue but try to discredit someone talking or writing about an issue who raises a fact they don’t like.
The AP report will be a)ignored, OR b)called a lie, OR c)skirted over, OR d)dismissed with some kind of lawyerly like argument. The expected reaction to the AP story can be boiled down in two words:
Facts, shmacts.
FOOTNOTE: I covered the Ronald Reagan amnesty as part of my job at the time as a reporter on The San Diego Union.
graphic via shutterstock.com
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.