Sometimes we get so used to things that what should be shocking isn’t, because it’s so familiar. That was my reaction this morning when I read what David Axelrod, President Obama’s political hit man, said to a bunch of journalists yesterday (quoted by John Dickerson in his SLATE article pointing out that the president’s re-election strategy is “not pretty”).
I’m not talking about Axelrod’s elevated, tone-raising comment about Newt Gingrich — “Just remember the higher a monkey climbs on a pole,” Axelrod said, “the more you can see his butt.” No, it wasn’t this reminder about the level of discourse in Chicago politics. What struck me instead, as though noticing something familiar for the first time, was Axelrod’s prediction that the Republicans’ “hard-line stances against illegal immigrants that will hurt with Hispanic voters.”
Really? Since Axelrod presumably doesn’t believe that many illegal immigrants will vote (does he?), I assume he means the great majority of Hispanic citizens support illegal immigration. I’m not sure they do, but in any event I find it unseemly — though not surprising; I did say this stance was familiar — for a president not to take a “hard-line stance” against illegality because some voters wouldn’t like it.
A president who would do that, after all, might just as easily refuse to take a “hard-line stance” against racial discrimination, against burdening some and benefitting others based on their race, because some voters might disapprove.
Oh, wait….
