We are So Superficial

After looking for a word to describe what I heard on “Morning Joe” I finally settled on the word “superficial” because according to the dictionary I used that word means “Concerned with or comprehending only what is apparent or obvious; not deep or penetrating emotionally or intellectually.” Isn’t that what we do every day?

The topic this morning was the president’s phone calls to senators Rubio, McCain and Graham, congratulating them for their efforts in trying to get a comprehensive immigration bill through the Senate. The president only did this because he knows he has to play the political game for the media. The 2007 immigration bill is still the template, and you couldn’t squeeze a paper clip between the Senate's version, and the one drafted by the White House. The White House version threw out the red meat out for the naysayers because it put in an eight-year time frame for someone who’s here illegally to gain citizenship; bypassing border enforcement first. That language gave Marco Rubio the opportunity to jump up and down and cry foul and gain some support from his base.


There’s only one issue to be resolved, and it lies within the GOP. That elephant in the room is the 11 million undocumented immigrants. Those that vote Republican because they could never vote for a Democrat want attrition only and if that means bankrupting the country, the party, and maintaining this wedge issue; so be it. The Republicans want the president to get involved but when he does, they accuse him of derailing the bipartisan effort. The truth is, the Democrats at those meetings are just the potted plants because there are they ready to push the “yea” button but the Republicans need to reinvent the English language to try to convince their base that what they are proposing is not amnesty. If anyone saw the video clips of Senator McCain fighting for the Senate's proposal in his district; you would have a better understanding of what I’m trying to say. I think we all know why the GOP wants an immigration bill to pass.They have already lost the black vote, the Asian vote and the single woman vote and to keep losing the fastest growing demographic(Latino vote) by over 45 percentage points  will mean permanent minority status at the national level;no pun intended.It's very difficult for them because it's as if they are recruiting for the opposition party. They feel like they are using a coffee cup to remove water from their sinking boat. I don't feel sorry for them because they put themselves in that situation by allowing the hateful rhetoric to dominate their overall message.  

With so many issues to be concerned with, Fox News White House correspondent, Ed Henry, is throwing a fit because the media did not get access to the golf outing between Tiger Woods and President Obama. Really, how about an expose about the financial devastation the upcoming sequester cuts will cost? Talk about a superficial manufactured crisis; the stock market doesn’t pay any attention to Washington anymore because they know when push comes to shove, Congress will kick the can down the road and eventually come back to the same place they were three months ago. The truth is, you won’t get a republican excited by saying that 200,000 federal jobs will be lost.

For the past for four years, I’ve heard that this president is not like past presidents because he doesn’t reach out to his fellow Democrats or to the opposition party. The pundits don’t realize that whatever he’s doing; it gave him two terms, and he just might be setting precedent for successful presidents of the future. If we subjectively look back on this presidency; I think we will find that President Obama accomplished a lot more than most presidents. He was the first in 100 years to get a comprehensive health-care package passed, did not allow us to go into a deep recession, ended the war in Iraq, disposed of Osama bin Laden and Omar Qaddafi, ended “Don’t Ask Don't. tell” got the Republicans to vote for a tax increase for the first time in 30 years and there are still the immigration and gun universal background checks to go.

There’s a plus to being my age; you don’t have to play the superficial game unless you want to.