Layer upon layer upon layer of bullshit. That’s what you have to wade through to even begin to understand what Charles Krauthammer is saying here:
KRAUTHAMMER: The disarray among Republicans makes you pine for the days of earmarks and the rack. That would be one or the other way to get these guys lined up. It is, to me, incomprehensible that Republicans aren’t getting together on this — so-called conservatives opposing the bill. It’s very simple. There are two things Americans agree on. You want to help the helpless kids, the ones who are already here in some way, and the appropriation of this bill is not at all extravagant. And the other thing is you want to stop the influx. We all know how that’s done, even the president agreed to it originally until he caved in to his left wing and came out against it. That is, you change the ’08 law in a very simple way — two lines. You simply say anybody who enters illegally through the Mexican border will be treated under the law the way Canadians and Mexicans are today. End of story. You do that and you’ve shown good faith. I agree with Ron, there’s not a chance in hell that the Senate will come back or the president will sign it, but at least the Republicans will have shown that they can do something.
It is ridiculous to sue the president on a Wednesday because he oversteps the law, as he has done a dozen times illegally and unconstitutionally, and then on a Thursday say that he should overstep the law, contradict the law that passed in 2008 and deal with this himself.
The shorter version of this is that Krauthammer thinks that the House Republicans jammed themselves when they should have been jamming the Democrats by passing a bill that the Senate would never agree to and the president would never sign. And then they should have left town and politicized the issue.
Krauthammer says that everyone agrees that the children should be cared for adequately, but he doesn’t object to the inadequate funding in the Republicans’ bill that comes nowhere close to supplying what the administration requested. He says that everyone agrees that we need to disincentivize people from sending their kids to the border, but his only solution to that problem is one that the Democrats won’t accept. Since compromise is out of the question, that means that nothing will be done.
But as wretchedly cynical as Krauthammer is being here, he is right about one thing. If the Republicans don’t change the law, they can’t very well ask the president to ignore the law as it stands after suing him for allegedly doing exactly that.
