Many, many years ago, the Friars Club, an institution with lots of old celebrities as members, used to do "roasts" of members of their esteemed institution, for charity. There would be Rat Pack types and their cronies, singers, comics and others. The "roasts" consisted of some of the more famous members walking to a lectern in the midst of the head table, and making good-natured fun of the subject.
One such roast sticks in my memory, decades after it was aired. The subject of the roast was Joe Namath, who was the quarterback of the New York Jets for a few years, when they won the third Super Bowl back -- when people actually watched the NFL and the players stood for the anthem. Namath, as you surely recall, was a real playboy in his time, known for dating scads of models and actresses.
The emcee of the roast was the late Buddy Hackett, a very funny and too-forgotten comedian and comic actor. Hackett talked with a peculiar speech pattern overlaid on a Brooklyn accent, at least when he wanted to, and affected a kind of "dumb guy who says clever funny things" persona.
In this instance, Hackett was introducing the late sportscaster Howard Cosell to give his take on Joe Namath, but it was actually Hackett's introduction of Cosell that I remember, not Namath. I detested Cosell, as did most everyone else on earth. He was a pompous loudmouth who was sure that he was smarter than you (whether true or not) and had a hyper-nasal, whiny New York accent that was itself pretty tough to listen to. People would change the channel when Cosell came on the air. So he was a great target.
"There have always been mixed emotions about Howard Cosell", Hackett began. "Some people hate him like poison! The rest of us just hate him regular."
That phrase pretty much characterizes the left in this country, and their collective attitude toward President Trump. The driving force behind the actions of the left have nothing to do with what is or is not good for the USA, or for its citizens, for the economy or our national defense. The most important thing, the most important factor that drives whether the liberal left, in and out of Congress, supports a policy is that they hate Donald Trump, and therefore if he is for something, they must, a priori, be opposed to it.
They just hate him regular, or maybe they hate him like poison. Matters not.
That, my friends, does not constitute a rational, cohesive policy structure. But it is what drives them. Else, how could you rationalize the Schumers and Pelosis and the like, turning down the opportunity to do what they have been screaming about, to get what they wanted, as far as immigration is concerned?
President Trump has been trying to terminate the DACA program, temporarily legitimizing children brought illegally to the USA and stalling their deportation if they enter a program. He has been seeking to end the program, not because he did not want the children to have a path to permanent residency, but because the program was Constitutionally illegal, done under an Executive Order instead of being put into law by Congress.
He naturally turned to Congress, and told them that he was going to end the program -- but that they should pass it as a legislative action, i.e., the legal, constitutional way that such programs that affect citizenship and residence status should be done. In fact, he said, if Congress would fund the border wall in the same bill, he would sign a DACA bill that would allow three times the number of children as are currently in DACA to enter the program!
So let's see -- you give the other side more than what they are asking for. But they said "nope", no matter the positive impact on the children both in, and potentially in, the program. Couldn't do it; it was a Donald Trump idea, and therefore they couldn't even sign up to not filibustering (and thus killing) the proposed legislation. They hate him regular, even if carrying out their hatred cost them what they've been asking for.
Why?
Well, two reasons. First is The Wall, which would be the price of their cooperation in passing the bill that would legislate DACA and legalize more children than they had asked for. The Wall, they insist, is a terrible thing. "We need bridges, not walls", they cry, even as illegals breach the border on a daily basis, violating existing immigration law, and causing the devastation on families such as that of Kate Steinle, and as the illegal drug traffic pours over the same border.
The Wall, you see, is a Donald Trump idea, which is the second reason. It is not that the Democrats don't want The Wall, surely. In fact, when the idea of a border wall came up for a funding vote in the Senate in the late 2000s, maybe ten years back, guess who voted for it. No, really, guess.
Did you guess Chuck Schumer? Or Barack Obama? Hillary Clinton, perhaps? Maybe Joe Biden? Would it shock you a little to know the answer is all of them? -- that Schumer and Obama both are recorded as declaring that a wall for border security was a good idea (by the way, all four of the above voted for it), and that in Schumer's words, people who cross the border illegally are not entitled to the same rights as people who cross legally?
Of course you guessed it, because you and I both know that it doesn't matter whether an idea is good. Once it becomes associated with Donald Trump, it must be opposed because Trump is to be hated and his ideas treated accordingly.
Hatred, hatred, hatred. It makes me wonder if I would have disagreed with something Howard Cosell said just because I couldn't stand him.
But then again, I'm not a Democrat leader in Congress. They should be better than that.
Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
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