About the President's threat to legalize up to half of the eleven million or so illegal immigrants now in the country by executive fiat,
The New York Times' Ross Douthat pens a solid
rejoinder:
Precedents would not actually justify the policy, because the scope would be radically different. Beyond a certain point, as the president himself has conceded in the past, selective enforcement of our laws amounts to a de facto repeal of their provisions. And in this case the de facto repeal would aim to effectively settle — not shift, but settle — a major domestic policy controversy on the terms favored by the White House.This simply does not happen in our politics.
Douthat concludes about such action:
It would be lawless, reckless, a leap into the antidemocratic dark. And an American political class that lets this Rubicon be crossed without demurral will deserve to live with the consequences for the republic, in what remains of this presidency and in presidencies yet to come.
In other words, the actions of a scofflaw - a third-world tinpot caudillo.
