Obama’s immigration plan is on the table; where’s yours, TanMan?

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

We already have seen demonstrated that the TanMan, Weeper of the House John Boehner, is the "Worst. Speaker. Ever." His "less-than-do-nothing" Tea-Publican Congress will be mocked by historians forever.

In a couple of related posts from Steve Benen, the insanity of putting Boehner in the leadership role is made clear. First, in 'Where's the president's plan?':

Complaining about President Obama's new immigration policy, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said yesterday the move will make it more "difficult" to pass a comprehensive reform package.Since reform efforts are impossible in this Congress anyway, it wasn't much of a complaint.

But Boehner added something else that struck me as interesting.

"Where's the president's immigration plan? Where does the president stand on this issue? Instead of campaigning all the time, maybe he ought to come back to Washington and go back to work," Boehner said.

It was an odd thing to say. If the House Speaker wants to know where President Obama's immigration plan is, he can type "President Obama's immigration plan" into the Google machine and, wouldn't you know it, one of the first results is President Obama's immigration plan. It's 29 pages long, written in easy-to-read language, and it's been online since May 2011.

Maybe Boehner isn't much of a reader? Well, Obama also delivered a detailed speech, outlining his immigration plan, last summer in Texas. The Speaker can watch the video.

When Boehner asks, "Where's the president's immigration plan? Where does the president stand on this issue?" it's disconcerting because it suggests the Speaker doesn't just disagree with Obama's approach; it suggests the Speaker doesn't understand that Obama's approach exists.

Boehner is under the impression that Obama's immigration plan is a well-kept secret, despite the fact that it's been publicly available for over a year.

Obama's critics realize the White House has a website, don't they?

So while the TanMan fails to acknowledge that President Obama actually has an immigration plan on the table, it is the GOP leadership that doesn't have an immigration plan after their designated Latino legislator, Sen. Marco Rubio, spent so much time posturing for the Veep cameras that he failed to produce his slimmed down version of the DREAM Act before President Obama announced his own.

And Willard "Mittens" Romney refuses to discuss policy details on any issue. GOP waits for marching orders on immigration:

[Romney's] transition from candidate to GOP standard bearer carries consequences Romney may not yet fully appreciate. Indeed, we saw the manifestation of this dynamic yesterday when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) balked at giving his opinion on President Obama's new immigration policy.

McConnell said he would wait — until presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney had taken a position first.

"I think we're going to wait and see what governor Romney has to say, and we're going to be discussing his views on this," McConnell told reporters at the Capitol Tuesday. "I think many of us may have similar views. Others may not."

McConnell said he was deferring to Romney because the former Massachusetts governor is "the leader of our party from now until November — and, we hope, beyond."

Three times McConnell was asked for his position, and three times he said he would wait for guidance from Romney.

At the surface, it's rather amusing to see Mitch McConnell refuse to take a position on a controversial issue, waiting for his party's inexperienced, flip-flopping nominee to tell McConnell what to think.

* * *

As McConnell's comments yesterday helped remind us, Romney may prefer to stick to vague positions, while ducking controversial positions on controversial issues, but there are limits to this strategy. Namely, Romney's party wants to reflect his beliefs, and if he displays "a great allergy to specifics and details," as Rich Lowry put it, Republican officials are paralyzed.

* * *

The issue goes well beyond immigration — Romney hopes to avoid taking firm stands on all kinds of issues, much to the chagrin of Republicans who want to stay in line with their nominee, but have no idea what he believes.

Will Romney step up? Does he even know how?

Today's speech before the annual conference of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) did nothing to give the GOP direction on Romney's immigration policy. He doesn't have one. So the GOP is paralyzed.