It is telling that no one in the Republican leadership criticized the Department of Justice’s new guidance that relaxes their attitude about marijuana. Maybe they are distracted by more pressing matters, but they do not ordinarily pass up chances to take shots at the administration. Their silence is especially surprising because the DOJ guidance fits into a pre-existing narrative that the GOP has been pursuing around the selective enforcement of the law. They didn’t like it when the administration stopped defending DOMA in court, or when they went to war in Libya without congressional authorization, or when the DOJ made a new guidance not to deport DREAMers.
By passing up a chance to amplify their message that the president is a tyrannical lawbreaker, the GOP is demonstrating that they don’t want to get on the wrong side of the marijuana debate. Call it the power of Generation X asserting itself.