Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said Monday that President Barack Obama’s move last week to block deportations for some young illegal immigrants in the U.S. has likely derailed his own similar efforts, at least until after the election.
“People are going to say to me, ‘Why are we going to need to do anything on this now. It has been dealt with. We can wait until after the election,’” Sen. Rubio said in an interview. “And it is going to be hard to argue against that.”
In conceding that his own push was likely dead for now, Mr. Rubio also expressed anger at how the White House made its announcement Friday without consulting him or other members of the Republican Party. “We have never talked to anyone in the White House about their plans,” he said. “The only thing the White House has ever done about our ideas was to try to get some of the Dream Act kids not work with us.”
The reason it has been dealt with is EXACTLY the same as why Obama did not solicit your input to stroke your delicate egos- because you guys haven’t done anything about the issue for 3 and 1/2 years, and there is no chance in hell you will in the next six months. I know it is hard for you to comprehend, but Charlie Brown is finally starting to figure out that Lucy is just going to pull the ball away, so he’s taking his ball and making a go of it on his own.
shortstop
I find this extremely enjoyable.
Villago Delenda Est
Marco, this is for you!
Culture of Truth
Arrogant, petty, and childish. What a combination.
BGinCHI
The Senate did not pass the Dream Act because of the GOP, so FUCK YOU, Rubio, you piece of shit.
Hill Dweller
In 2010, the actual Dream Act passed the House and got 58(?) votes in the Senate, which wasn’t enough to overcome the Republicans’ filibuster. Any f’n hack in the Republican party saying Obama didn’t do anything on immigration before last Friday is lying.
Xecky Gilchrist
bbbut drones banksters geithner public option!
ETA Just words bully pulpit catfood commission!
Patricia Kayden
Rubio can now talk his fellow Repubs into passing the Dream Act instead of whining about what President Obama has done.
Villago Delenda Est
@Hill Dweller:
White courtesy phone for Marco Rubio!
Culture of Truth
This new meme, that the GOP was just about to enact the DREAM Act – no for reals guys! – if only Obama had put in a phone call to Rubio (why, exactly?) is so ridiculous even David Gregory laughed at it.
rikyrah
Marco Rubio wasn’t trying to pass shyt. He was blowing smoke, and was pretending, so that he could pretend that Willard gave a shyt about Latinos. Rubio was willing to be Willard’s ‘cover’.
Well, the President put all that to rest on Friday. NOBODY is stopping Marco from putting up so that it could become LAW. The President prefers changes to the LAW, so he would welcome it.
Marco knows damn well that the only votes he could get on this in the SENATE, let alone the House, are Democratic Votes.
The President took away Marco’s chance to posture.
thank you, Mr. President.
Just Some Fuckhead
Is that a racial slur?
Villago Delenda Est
@Culture of Truth:
That’s a pretty high bar for ridiculousness.
Good going guys!
Mark S.
Translation: we were going to offer a DREAM Act that would have allowed about 10 people to get citizenship, loaded it up with tax breaks for oil companies and anti-abortion riders, and then whined when Democrats refused to pass it. What Obama did was the worst of all worlds.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Okay, Mr. Hopey Changey, where are you going to get the cannon fodder for the war with Iran without Rubio’s plan to recruit furriners?
Redshift
Well, now we know the source of Romney’s bizarre complaint that Obama’s move would “make it harder” to do something permanent. It was so nonsensical that even some of the political media were moved to ask “uhh, how, exactly?” And it doesn’t make any more sense coming from Rubio.
SatanicPanic
His complaint is that someone solved the problem he was working on? Does he have nothing else to work on?
Soonergrunt
I love this President, and I’ll vote for him again, as well as donate more money to his reelect campaign, but he should’ve realized this 2.5 years ago
BGinCHI
Rubio reminds me of Fez from That 70’s Show, but dumber.
Hunter Gathers
Rubio has a bright future ahead of him. He has the childish complaining act down cold. He almost whines as much as POTUS in exile John McCain.
Redshift
@Mark S.: You can’t parody these guys; they’re already worse than anything you can invent. Rubio’s starting point for negotiating with the teabaggers didn’t give anybody citizenship.
Redshift
@Hunter Gathers: Look for him to become a regular on the Sunday shows, despite having no accomplishments to his name.
Forum Transmitted Disease
The good Senator is about to find out that getting the knife out of your back is even more painful than when you got shivved in the first place.
grape_crush
If you can’t criticize the decision made, piss and moan about how the decision was made.
Good to see that Obama is capable of forcing the turnover. No need to let them try to own that particular issue, ‘tho it would have been fun to see them squabbling among themselves.
MattF
OK, but, you see this is just an ordinary political lie, not a Romney-lie. Rubio’s feelings were hurt. Well, boo-hoo, end of story. To compare, what do you think the reaction would be if Mitt ever complained that his feelings were hurt? You see? There’s a difference.
Chris
@Culture of Truth:
Remember when Newt Gingrich said that he’d engineered the government shutdown because Bill Clinton had made him sit in the back of Air Force One? Apparently, they all thought that was a brilliant move, because they’re all doing it now.
PZ
I think any post about GOP feelings should begin with this-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zI3_pnUU3k
They are crying the tear of a rapper…
Culture of Truth
@Villago Delenda Est:
MCCAIN: it was a Senator Obama amendment that was one of the factors, there were many, that was one of the factors that killed comprehensive immigration reform. And the issue was on the guest worker program.
DAVID GREGORY:
[ laughing out loud ]
Right. But you can’t deny it was the conservatives in the Republican Party that made a Republican president who championed this issue unable to get this done.
middlewest
Too bad there aren’t any journalists in America to ask how a DHS directive affects legislation in congress at all. Maybe if he goes to Europe we can find out.
Bubblegum Tate
@shortstop:
Ditto. What I really enjoy, though, is the teabagger frothing of “this is unconstitutional and a terrible idea and a Draconian power grab and a total violation of America, and the worst part is you did it before Marco Rubio could!”
Violet
Hilarious. If this keeps up, President Obama is going to start looking like Lucy and the Republicans can play Charlie Brown for a change.
Culture of Truth
GREGORY: “You worked with Ted Kennedy. You worked with President Bush. I mean, the Republican Party moved to the right on that issue and made that impossible.”
[ laughing in disbelief ]
You can’t lay that on President Obama, can you?”
SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN: “I can if you have 60 votes in the United States Senate and an overwhelming majority in the House for the first two years of your presidency, no matter what the position of the Republican Party was.”
eric
@Bubblegum Tate: is teabagger froth a derivative of santorum?
Yutsano
@Culture of Truth: When you’ve lost David Gregory…
Oh and suck it Grandpa Walnuts. You voted no like a good little Republican sheep.
Culture of Truth
GREGORY: “You think Mitt Romney is wrong on the Dream Act? He hasn’t supported it.”
SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN: “He said, again, this morning and he has said previously, he is certainly willing to address that issue…”
“…He understands the plight of these young people….”
“…But I would also point out I don’t think Mitt Romney, as president of the United States, would say we’re not going to enforce existing laws.”
double-twisting backflip, and he stuck the landing!
Cris (without an H)
“never consulted us or asked for our input” is the new “uppity”
eric
@Culture of Truth: such as the Civil Rights Act…..nothing selective gonna happen there.
Ash Can
Marco, sweetie, I think you should go home now and let the grownups handle the governing.
(Edited to fix lol typo)
Linda Featheringill
@Soonergrunt:
Right. Somewhere in his past, when he was supposed to be learning how bullies and assholes act, he was apparently surrounded with nice people. It has been painful to watch, because it often reminded me of how I learned that lesson.
If, however, he has learned that, then Hooray.
None to Rubio: If you want the other kids to ask you to play with them, you have to be nice.
shortstop
@Ash Can: I suspect that what’s really concerning old Marco is his partymates asking him to refresh their drinks and clean their pools, now that his usefulness as “Look, Spanish-Speaking Peoples of the U.S.! We’re Really Serious This Time About the DREAM Act, Guys!” dude is at an end.
Linda Featheringill
I’m sure there’s a term that means Hispanic/Latino on the outside but white on the inside. However, I don’t know the term.
Do you guys?
ETA: punctuation.
Yutsano
@shortstop: Not to mention getting a “wet foot-dry foot” Cubano to sell it.
BGinCHI
@Culture of Truth: Gregory: “VICTORY!”
McCain: “VICTORY!”
SiubhanDuinne
@Ash Can:
Would love to know what it was!
Culture of Truth
The GOP position on this is completely incoherent, but Obama’s action do allow them to attempt to play both sides, assuring Latinos they were mere days away from passing the Dream Act, while winking to the other side.
Will this fool anyone? Actually yes — some Beltway journalists, Fox News watchers, assorted crazies and lackeys. In short, your much vaunted 27%
Sasha
And yet in another blow to Rubio’s VP chances, Cristina Saralugui (“the Hispanic Oprah”) came out and endorsed Obama’s reelection — the first time she’s ever endorsed anyone for president.
If you really want to see blood and holy retribution against the Right, pray that the usual jackholes (aka Rush) attack Cristina.
Ash Can
@SiubhanDuinne: Nothing, really. I just sort of ran his first and last name together and called him “Mario.” Not nearly as good as, say, calling him a public servant and leaving the “L” out.
NobodySpecial
This is a mistake. Without having the votes to pass it in the Senate, all he does is risk that a future Republican President will repeal it, putting us right back where we were. This is why the bully pulpit is useless – he should have been pragmatic and taken what he could have gotten with a minority of Congress backing him up.
If you disagree, show me the votes.
Valdivia
@Linda Featheringill:
rabi blancos. but it doesn’t fit. also he is cuban so the rest of us see him as that more than anything else. it explains it all.
Xecky Gilchrist
@NobodySpecial: all he does is risk that a future Republican President will repeal it, putting us right back where we were
Deja vu – didn’t Romney just say this?
balconesfault
Romney: the timing is pretty clear
Sure. There’s some other point during an Obama Presidency when he could have made this move and the right would not have attacked it as politically motivated.
It’s a wonder that Romney can complete any interview without having the interviewer burst into laughter.
Bubblegum Tate
@eric:
You know, I think it is. After all, teabaggers love Santorum.
PurpleGirl
@Valdivia: The Cubans I knew (college boyfriend and his family) all saw themselves as Cuban/Spanish (aristocracy) and held themselves apart from Puerto Ricans, Mexicans and other South Americans. That they spoke the same language was an accident of history.
shortstop
@PurpleGirl: Shhhh….the GOP hasn’t figured this out yet. Let them get another Cuban poster boy and ask each other in bewilderment why this one’s not taking with other Hispanic voters, either.
Keith
Rubio can cry himself to sleep on John McCain’s shoulder.
FWIW, Erin Burnett actually did a good job of putting some GOP joker’s feet to the flame on this, basically repeating over and over again, “Yeah, but didn’t he do this because the bill has been in limbo for 3 years because of you?”
danielx
About fucking time.
texascowgirl
@Sasha: This is a big freaking deal. She’s huge in the Latino Community and I always got the impression that she liked Mrs. Obama a lot.
Redshift
@NobodySpecial:
Fascinating. Since you’re the one asserting this, rather than demanding that others prove you wrong, how about you explain what you think he could have gotten with “a minority of Congress backing him up.” In terms of “show me the votes,” generally what you get with a minority of Congress is nothing.
From your lips to the ears of Latino voters. One of the points of an action like this is to make clear the reality of the situation to voters affected by it.
Before, it was “you’re getting nothing because of a Republican Congress, and if you elect Romney, you’ll definitely still get nothing, but if you re-elect me and a Democratic Congress, you’ll see progress.” True, but kinda meh.
Now, it’s “you’ve got something pretty exciting, and you’re going to lose it if the Republicans win.” That’s a hell of a lot more motivation. In operant conditioning, negative reinforcement (the threat of losing a reward) is more effective than either reward or punishment.
JWL
Rubio’s come, and Rubio’s go, but the powers who sponsor them sometimes remain entrenched. Here in California, they’ve entrenched themselves into obscurity, at least insofar as election to state offices are concerned. Yet they still retain an iron grip on the republican party apparatus.
gelfling545
@Soonergrunt: He may or may not have realized this 2.5 years ago but I am sure he realized it well before now although, no doubt, the extent of the situation may have been well nigh unbelievable for some time. Should he have anticipated republicans voting against their own policies? I really believe that the public had to be shown in no uncertain terms that there was no compromise of any sort coming from the GOP and that the President wasn’t just going all pissy unitary executive.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
He dropped the mic on their asses – again.
Maude
@gelfling545:
With Obama it’s about timing. He is excellent at this.
He has always know what the Republicans are about. It’s how to handle each situation at a given time.
There is nothing naive about Obama.
He’s quiet. Not unaware.
Oh, for crying out loud
Oh for craps sake, Sen. Rubio, quit whining! You sound like Paul Ryan. Waaaaah!
John Cole, I think I love you….
suekzoo
Rubio just got a tough lesson in ‘shit or get off the pot.’
Arundel
Am I the only one who thinks Rubio is taken even slightly seriously because- he’s kind of good-looking? Also youngish and Latino, which is supposed to be a positive since he’s a member of a party that is not that crazy about Hispanic people! it would seem.
Honestly, it’s his looks. Dan Quayle again, but with uh spice. (Hate myself for writing that.)
According to the New Yorker, his sister was (is?) married to some drug-lord’s employee who served time for violent drugs-related crime. Imagine what Our Liberal Media would do with that if Rubio were a wimpy, ugly potential Democratic veep pick.
Cacti
@Arundel:
I’ll answer your question with another.
How many fat Presidents have there been in the television age?
How many bald Presidents?
Marie
@danielx: Exactly what I thought. It is the PERFECT analogy to what is going on….finally! Wa Wa Rubio. Ra Ra Obama.
X
@Cacti: Rubio won’t be full-on bald for at least another six months or so.
Caz
Boy are you deluded! How does a purported smart guy like you actually still support and defend Obama?? He’s by far the worst president ever, has no respect for the Constitution, civil rights, due process, the rule of law, separation of powers, checks and balances, or limits on executive power. He pushed through a massively unpopular health care law that forces people to buy insurance, kills American citizens in his sole discretion, bypasses Congress routinely on appointments, conducts military attacks against nations that have not provoked us or threatened us at all, apologizes to the muslim world, spies on the American public, spends money like it’s going out of style, etc.
I mean, seriously dude, do you not have your eyes open? Are you not observing the same world as me?
The funny thing is that in this little echo chamber you’ve created, your views actually seem commonplace, when in fact, more and more people in the real world are waking up to the socialist dictatorship that is being fashioned in front of us.
Just about the only ones left are the useful idiots. You, sir, are one of the useful idiots, and I fear there is no hope for you if you haven’t figured it out by now you probably never will.
Please don’t vote anymore, you’re just hurting the nation!
Caz
And you all can spare me the troll bullshit – I’ve been on this blog since it started; I just disagree with pretty much everything you useful idiots say.
Which is probably why I’m about the only non-useful idiot on here. When your audience is entirely one-sided, it means you are not fostering an intelligent discussion of issues. Instead, you have created a pat-yourself-on-the-back echo chamber where everyone says, “Yep, you’re right! No, you’re right! We are right! Yay us!”
It’s funny and pathetic at the same time, like a train wreck, I just can’t turn away, lol.
hildebrand
@Caz: Wow. What a sad commentary on your own life, no? I mean, if you feel the need to feel superior to a bunch of anonymous people, and to continue to do so for years – that says rather a lot. But, by all means, stick around, if you are spending a great deal of time here it likely means that you are not out on the streets pestering people in person.
RaflW
“Charlie Brown is finally starting to figure out that Lucy is just going to pull the ball away, so he’s taking his ball and making a go of it on his own.”
Late to the party, but yes, yes, yes.
TenguPhule
Oh Fuck, did that shithole Bush just seize power through a Coup and a missed it?
Pat In Massachusetts
Marco sad? Pat happy!
X
Can we have a Sad Rubio gif? Preferably an animated one?