Illegal Immigration is Not a Criminal Offense

At the Republican Presidential CNN/YouTube debate on Wednesday night, Mike Huckabee tried to explain a plan he introduced as governor of Arkansas to provide the children of undocumented immigrants a college education. He said:

Huckabee: I supported the bill that would’ve allowed those children who had been in our schools their entire school life the opportunity to have the same scholarship that their peers had, who had also gone to high school with them and sat in the same classrooms.

They couldn’t just move in in their senior year and go to college. It wasn’t about out of state tuition. It was an academic, meritorious scholarship called the Academic Challenge Scholarship.

Now, let me tell you a couple of provisions of it. And, by the way, it didn’t pass. It passed the House but got in the Senate and got caught up in the same kind of controversy that this country is caught up in.

And here’s what happened. This bill would’ve said that if you came here, not because you made the choice but because your parents did, that we’re not going to punish a child because the parent committed a crime.

That’s not what we typically do in this country.

I thought this was an interesting response because while Huckabee is trying to appeal to the better angels of our nature here, he is still getting some wrong.  And probably deliberately, which is undocumented immigration is not a crime, its a civil violation. That is to say, unauthorized immigration to the United States, is not punishable through the U.S. criminal code.

In fact, deportation or removal proceedings are actually conducted in civil court, not criminal court.

But so many of us have had it beat into our heads that undocumented immigrants carry this aura of inherent criminality around them because all we here is illegal immigration, illegal immigration, illegal immigration, illegal immigration.

Even Republican front runner Rudy Guiliani got slaughtered by his base when he tried to inform people about this distinction.

And assuming that we could charged all immigrants without papers or who are unauthorized with criminal charges, that would lead to a administrative nightmare that would do more harm than good. Our courts could not handle those cases and there is no where near the manpower to conduct mass deportation. Not to mention families would be broken apart and many of those charged would be detained almost indefinitely while the government figures out what to do with them.

Some of this is obviously already happening.

Of course, some people may think this is a mere semantic distinction, but its not. Its about trying to think straight about a problem before it gets worse.

Broken Windows Theory Justifies Voter ID Laws?

Voter ID proponents say the strangest things.

Take, for example, Capital University law professor Bradley Smith who tried to rationalize his support for Indiana’s onerous voter ID law by comparing it to the broken window theory.

First a little background on the Indiana law.

Prior to the enactment of the Indiana voter ID law in July of 2005, Indiana election officials verified the identities of voters by comparing photographed signatures or by satisfying other HAVA requirements which included both photo and non-photo IDs.

But under the new law, voters must present a government-issued photo ID before casting a ballot, such as drivers license or a passport. Other forms of identification even a military or a Congressional ID will not cut it. Additionally, even provisional ballots can only be counted, if a government issue ID is provided. With the sole exception of Georgia no other state voting identification requirements are as restrictive.

Now onto the broken windows theory. This theory was first articulated by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling in a 1982 article in the Atlantic Monthly, where they describe the theory in the following manner:

Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it’s unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside.

Or consider a sidewalk. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of trash from take-out restaurants there or breaking into cars.

Apparently, in Bradley Smith’s mind there is a link between the pending anarchy due to rampant crime and the scant evidence of voter fraud. You can find his explanation in an online debate with law professor Edward Foley of Moritz law school. But the most striking example of his line of argument can be found in this passage:

It may be true that a voter ID law prevents very little fraud in a direct sense, though a few such cases almost certainly exist; but like fixing broken windows and cleaning up litter and graffiti, such a basic procedure may prevent fraud from growing. It sends a message that voting is serious—at least as serious as cashing a paycheck or buying cigarettes, both of which require photo ID.

The mere sense that someone is likely to ask for ID may be perceived by would-be perpetrators as increasing the odds of being caught and identified in some other type of fraud (or, we should add, voter intimidation scheme). It brings a sense of order and modernity to elections, and as such may be perceived as indicative that other forms of fraud, such as absentee ballot fraud, are also being watched and are likely to be caught. Judge Posner’s Crawford opinion may inadvertently come closest to applying the “broken windows” analogy when it briefly compared voter fraud to littering, in that both crimes are exceedingly hard to catch in the act.

Immigrants and GDP

According to a study by the Fiscal Policy Institute, immigrants added $229 billion to the New York State economy in 2006 alone. That figure amounted to 22.4 percent of NY state’s Gross Domestic Product.

Hypothetically speaking, this means if those immigrants just in New York state succeeded and became their own country, they would be ranked 30th in the world in terms of their GDP rating. They would be ahead of countries such as Israel, Ireland, South Africa, Argentina, and the United Arab Emirates.

Thats kinda mind blowing.

For a quick look at how your state’s GDP compares to that of other countries, check out this cool map.

Biden Neck and Neck with Guiliani in NH

No matter how optimistic Guiliani supporters are there is nothing encouraging about seeing a guy who is basically running for Secretary of State and has been all but ignored by the national media, run neck and neck with the GOP frontrunner. That’s right Sen. Biden is keeping pace with Guiliani in New Hampshire, according to Rasmussen.

Democratic Senator Joe Biden isn’t on the map of the Democratic nomination race. And almost 30% of likely voters nationwide don’t know enough to have an opinion of him. But a new Rasmussen Reports survey shows Biden within two points of the GOP national frontrunner and tied with the Republican leader in New Hampshire.

I guess a good joke told at the right moment can get you pretty far.

Iraqi Refugees

On his blog for the New Yorker, “Interesting Times,” George Packer described the harrowing experience of one Iraqi he calls Ibrahim who to fled Baghdad after receiving death threats from a co-worker aligned with the Mahdi militia. Realizing his life was in danger, Ibrahim tried to navigate the byzantine world of human trafficking to get himself smuggled out of country. Packer’s source, Ibrahim, says the journey led him from Dubai to Bombay, among other countries, before landing him in Egypt where he was repeatedly tortured by his captors after they discovered Ibrahim’s forged traveling papers.

Packer relays Ibrahim telling of the underground torture haven in excruciating detail here.

In March, Ibrahim says, an Egyptian intelligence officer involved in the smuggling ring that brought him to Cairo sent a Palestinian middleman to persuade Ibrahim to go to the airport with his fake passport. At the airport, he could have his entry into Egypt legalized. Desperate to keep the police at bay, Ibrahim overcame his fear of deportation and did as he was told. But instead of receiving a permit, he was arrested and taken to a prison beneath the airport. There, other lost souls who had run afoul of the Egyptian authorities languished underground for weeks on end. Moldavian girls, charged with prostitution, were regularly raped in prison; men from Ghana, Liberia, Algeria, and even Europe, arrested on one charge or another, suffered brutal beatings and electric shocks administered with a lamp. Ibrahim was among those beaten. One day he heard the cries of a Somali boy of about twelve who was being tortured in a bathroom. The place was swarming with cockroaches, and Ibrahim’s Portuguese cellmate instructed him to stuff his nostrils and ears with paper before going to sleep so that they didn’t crawl in and lay eggs. “Under the floor where tourists from all around the world go,” Ibrahim told me, “this is what exists.”

But miraculously, Ibrahim managed to get himself released from captivity and even fast tracked by the U.S. State Department for asylum in the U.S. with the help of an American attorney named Kirk Johnson of the law firm of Holland & Knight who tirelessly worked pro bono on Ibrahim’s behalf.

Once Packer and Ibrahim met face to face, the latter had questions that center as much on human nature as it did on policy matters.

When I saw Ibrahim last week, the questions kept pouring out of him: Who are the real Americans? The officials who treated him badly in Baghdad, or the volunteers who showered him with gifts in Tucson? The ones who threw up barriers to his rescue, or the ones who made it their personal business? Why did Egyptians care less about a fellow-Arab than some Americans did? Are people basically bad or good?

Since those questions are difficult to answer in a single book much less a blog post, I thought I would leave readers of IntheKut with a few stats and figures that might convey how unlikely it is that Ibrahim would actually find refuge in the United States.

The UN says that 2 million Iraqi refugees now live in Syria and Jordan alone.

The Bush administration promised to settle 7,000 refuges in February, before revising that number to 2,000 in September. So far approximately 1,600 have been resettled in the U.S.

And, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, at Syracuse University fewer than 3,000 Iraqis were given asylum between 2001 and 2006 compared to 40,000 for Chinese nationals.

FBI Reports Spike in Hate Crimes

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has reported a spike in hate crimes last year (see graph below.) But as the Associated Press notes the stats are rather incomplete:

Police across the nation reported 7,722 criminal incidents in 2006 targeting victims or property as a result of bias against a race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnic or national origin or physical or mental disability. That was up 7.8 percent from 7,163 incidents reported in 2005.

More than half the incidents were motivated by racial prejudice, but the report did not even pick up all the racially motivated incidents last year.

More importantly, all we can say is that there has been an increase in the available data, but we do not know for sure which states or cites have seen a spike and which have not. That is not to say, however, that the anecdotal evidence of a surge in hate crimes isn’t off base. But it is worth mentioning that only one city in Alabama reported any stats and that city reported only one instance. In Georgia, only three cities reported at all. More pressure needs to be applied on local and state authorities to discourage such data suppression. As for Mississippi, the Clarion Ledger put it best:

The number of hate crimes increased across the nation last year, but in Mississippi it remained the same in 2006 as it did in 2005: zero.

Plus, there are a number of victims of hate crimes who choose not to report because they fear retaliation from their community or having their immigration status revealed.

And, of course, the fact that numbers are being reported now only begs the question if the federal government intentionally delayed releasing the stats until after the march on the Justice Department took place. John Miller, FBI spokesman, of course, flatly dismissed such suggestions as “absurd.”

See what your state reported here.

Guiliani’s Noun + Verb + 9/11 Problem

Warning: The following video may have a mind numbing and desensitizing affect on the viewer.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

A Diverse Race

In a letter to the Washington Post today, a David C. Ruffin seemed to have little patience with Juan Williams overemphasizing the fact that a significant percentage of African Americans in a recent Pew poll said black folk should not be considered one race.

Juan Williams’s Nov. 14 op-ed, “One Race, Divisible,” cited polling data showing that many African Americans no longer think of blacks in this country as a single race.

That is nonsense. At more than 36 million, the black population of the United States is bigger than that of many nations. There’s great diversity among us in opinions, values and socioeconomic status. But we’re all still black. Black America is not a monolith, and neither is white America.

Because a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant cab driver sees the world differently than a Hungarian immigrant computer company executive doesn’t mean that they’re not both white.

Amen.

Favorability Ratings Among top Black Newsmakers

Among top African American news makers 50 Cent, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and Secretary of State Condi Rice rounded out the top three poorest influences within the African American community, according to a recent Pew Poll of black respondents.

What does it mean when two of the nation’s best known black Republicans are shunned by so many black folk?

I am not exactly sure, but GOPers can at least take some solace in knowing that former Secretary of State Colin Powell came in fifth place for positive favorability ratings.

Oprah Winfrey, Bill Cosby, and Bishop T.D. Jakes were rated as the most positive influences.

Interestingly enough, Presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama came in fourth among the more positive African American news makers. Its hard to say whether or not this is due to Obama needing to introduce himself to more African American voters or if they are just skeptical about him period.

One thing is for sure blacks remain doubtful that Obama can garner enough support among whites to wage a successful presidential bid. Whites, on the other hand, are far more optimistic in believing race will not be a factor in how they assess his candidacy.

One black political figure, Barack Obama, enjoys broad favorability in the black community, as he does among Americans generally — but by and large, that opinion is not strongly held. Among blacks able to rate him, 89% view him at least somewhat favorably. But fewer than half (42%) say their opinion is very favorable and only half see Obama strongly sharing black community values and interests. Also, blacks are more likely than whites to say that Obama’s race would hurt him with voters in the general election were he to become Democratic nominee for president next year.

Michele Obama is probably out there wondering when black America is going to “wake up and get it.” In fact, I think I can hear her right now telling people “what we’re dealing with in the black community is just the natural fear of possibility.”

And for some reason, former supermodel Tyra Banks somehow made it to the middle of the pack of the top 14 African American news getters, edging out both Tiger Woods and Jesse Jackson. Apparently, staring in reality TV show about modeling and fashion can do wonders for your favorability.

On a more serious note, its sad to know that only three black women were on this list.

Obama and Clinton Going Nose to Nose on Rumor Mill

The chattering classes have been paying a lot of attention to the recent tiff between the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s campaigns inspired by a column by Robert Novak regarding a rumor making its way through Democratic circles. Novak claims its Clinton’s folks are the ones spreading it. But Novak, who is not noted for strong sources among Democrats, should not report on rumors, and he should be vehemently criticized for doing so.

In fact, unless there is somehow a way to substantiate the claims, the press in general should not report on rumors. Thats what people go to People Magazine for, not newspapers.

And they got nerve to say bloggers are the new yellow journalists.

By the same token, I do see some value in trying to understand how the campaign have tried to spin such gossip as they assume a tit for tat posture for political gain. At any rate, here is what Novak wrote:

AGENTS of Sen. Hillary Clinton are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about her principal opponent for the party’s presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, but has decided not to use it. The nature of the alleged scandal was not disclosed.

The Obama campaign sensing this has the making of a swift boat campaign immediately swung back with a statement of their own “The cause of change in this country will not be deterred or sidetracked by the old ‘Swift boat’ politics. The cause of moving America forward demands that we defeat it.”

And then there was the Clinton response

This is how Republicans work. A Republican-leaning journalist runs a blind item designed to set Democrats against one another. Experienced Democrats see this for what it is. Others get distracted and thrown off their games. Voters should be concerned about the readiness of any Democrat inexperienced enough to fall for this. There is only one campaign in this race that has actually engaged in the very practice that Sen. Obama is decrying, and it’s his. We have no idea what Mr. Novak’s item is about and reject it totally. Instead of pointing fingers at us, Sen. Obama should get back to the issues and focus on what this election is really about.

And then there was more after that that you can read about here. In previous posts, I wondered out loud about Obama’s willingness to strike back when the opposition gets nasty, but in this instance I think he may be perceived as paranoid and hyper sensitive in some quarters. Of course, that’s the chance you take during the course of a campaign. Allowing attacks to linger, particularly if you know they are baseless will only embolden detractors to continue their onslaught.

On the other hand, it does seem as if the Obama camp is probably not that interested in whether or not the rumor originated with someone in the Clinton campaign. Perhaps, their response sounds principled on first glance, but the really they are trying to slow down Madame Inevitable by trying to engage her and make her respond.

He (Obama) called on Clinton to release the alleged information — or renounce the whole thing. He added: “She of all people, having complained so often about ‘the politics of personal destruction,’ should move quickly to either stand by or renounce these tactics.

If she publicly disavows such attacks, then the Obama campaign can somewhat neutralize future attacks from the Clinton campaign or at least imply that they are part of her “politics of personal destruction.” Of course, the Clintonistas will not take the bait of renouncing the attacks since they are eager to make the Obama camp look naive and desperate for attention.

I doubt either side will succeed at accomplishing anything in the near term and probably should just agree to a cease fire — at least on this issue. More than likely, this will all result in draw.

And just think its not even January yet.

(H/T: Think on these things.)

Pew Survey of Blacks Reveals Mixed Opinons

Earlier this week, Juan Williams declared, “conventional wisdom about black America is being turned on its head” due to the findings of a new Pew poll of black attitudes. Williams was specifically referring to the fact that a surprising high percentage of respondents believed “blacks are no longer a signal race.”

Nearly two out of five black people (37 percent) surveyed in a new Pew poll, done in association with NPR, said that blacks “can no longer be thought of as a single race.” Only half of all black people in the country (53 percent) say it is possible to think of blacks as one race. And young black Americans — ages 18 to 29 — are more likely than older blacks to say that blacks are no longer a single race.

Williams explains that this trend can be attributed to a different set of values that have everything to do with class. “61 percent of blacks say values are now more different between middle-class and poor blacks,” Williams writes. Polling data also suggested that the more educated and the more affluent the respondents were the more likely they were to say that middle-class blacks and middles-class whites have values that were more similar to whites.

But what does this really mean? Does this mean class trumps race? Or does this mean different levels of education and opportunity can divide people or at the very least account for more diversity of opinion than most of us would otherwise presume? Or does this mean that the political and economic interest among blacks are sufficiently different for this trend in difference of opinion to solidify in the future?

Well, at the very least some of the results in the survey clearly suggest that racial divisions among whites and blacks still exist on certain core issues important to black folk. Consider the survey’s findings comparing white and black attitudes of the criminal justice system:

Blacks are twice as likely as whites to see the death penalty as being applied in an unfair manner – just 24% of blacks see capital punishment as evenhandedly imposed, compared with 57% of whites. And they are far less likely than whites to say that police will enforce the law fairly, treat all races equally, and not resort to excessive force.

Additionally, 42 percent of whites had a “great deal of confidence” in police officers to “treat races equally” compared to only 14 percent of blacks. This is unsurprising in light of the racial disparities in incarceration rates among blacks and whites. Blacks make up only 12 percent of the overall U.S. population, an incredible 40 percent of all prison inmates. Whites on the other had make up 66 percent of the population and yet constitute only 36 percent of all prisoners. So much for the great divergence in opinion within black America.

Joe Biden the Opinion Maker?

While watching the Democratic debate in Las Vegas on Thursday night, I noticed how often many of the other candidates deferred to Senator Joe Biden’s judgement and knowledge on a whole host of issues.

For example, here’s Senator Edwards response to a question on trade deals and pointing out differences between himself and Madame Inevitable.

I mean, for example, just over the course of the last week, Senator Clinton said in Washington that she would vote for the Peru Trade Deal, and she said in Iowa, talking to union members, that she wanted a moratorium on trade deals.

The important thing about this, though, is none of us — none of us — because the reality is, and I want to add on to something that Joe Biden said — you know, before I came over here tonight, I was thinking we’re going to have this debate. When we finish, all of you are going to be on television saying, “Oh, who scored points? Who won the debate”

Senator Dodd on the importance of having an election be about the issues.

There’s a shrillness to the debate. The American people want results, they want the job done, exactly what Joe Biden talked about here. But people get up in the morning and go to work, they sit around and they worry about their jobs, their retirement, their health care, this kids’ education, and they wonder if anybody in Washington is paying any attention to them and whether or not the job is being done on their behalf.

Senator Obama on the need for strategic thinking in South Asia and the Middle East.

And Joe and Bill are exactly right on this. Pakistan’s democracy would strengthen our battle against extremists.

The more we see repression, the more there are no outlets for how people can express themselves and their aspirations, the worse off we’re going to be, and the more anti-American sentiment there’s going to be in the Middle East. We keep on making this mistake.

And Senator Hillary Clinton on voting on the Kyl-Liberman amendment which declared the Kuds and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard terrorist organizations.

Well, there is no basis for that fear. There is, however, a deep concern that is well justified about this president.

That’s why what I’ve tried to do is oppose a rush to war. I started speaking out against it back in February because I was worried about President Bush. Working with members of Congress to do exactly what Joe is saying, which is to make it absolutely clear there is no legal authority whatsoever.

Senator Obama again in addressing the question of judicial nominations.

I would not appoint somebody who doesn’t believe in the right to privacy. But you’re right, Wolf. I taught constitutional law for 10 years, and when you look at what makes a great Supreme Court justice, it’s not just the particular issue and how they ruled. But it’s their conception of the court.

And part of the role of the court is that it is going to protect people who may be vulnerable in the political process, the outsider, the minority, those who are vulnerable, those who don’t have a lot of clout. And part of what I want to find in a Supreme Court justice — and Joe’s exactly right. Sometimes we’re only looking at academics or people who’ve been in the courts.

This Sen. Biden guy must be really knowledgeable about so many issues. Maybe he should run for president someday.

It seems I am not the only who has been thinking pick up on this.

Check out the video.

Thousands Protest DOJ Sluggish Response to Hate Crimes and Police Misconduct

Yesterday thousands marched from Freedom Plaza to the Justice Department in Washington DC to protest the limp response prosecuting hate crimes and police misconduct. Activists have pointed to the disparity in treatment of Jena Six teens, the noose found from college campuses to the cost guard academy, the rape and torture of Megan Williams, the deadly shooting of Sean Bell in Queens, New York and Khiel Coppin in Brooklyn has served as the impetus for more than 20,000 people to agitate federal authorities to vigorously enforce civil rights laws.

Though much of the media attention and ire has focused on Rev. Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King Jr. III, the Hip Hop Caucus has been the main organizing force behind the march, which has been promoted by black radio personalities such as Tom Joyner and Steve Harvey have promoted it.

Newly sworn in Attorney General Michael Mukasey has released a statement in reaction to march implying that the energies of the march has been misplaced. “We hope that all can agree that it is the criminals who commit violent acts of hate who deserve the loudest protest.” He also suggested that much of work on hate crime case has to be done secret, “In order to be most effective, these investigations do not occur in the public eye.” Such a statement should strike most people as a dodge considering that it is the lack of enforcement of federal laws that people were protesting against.

More importantly the numbers tell the story. According to an ABC News article,

In 1997, there were 799 investigations of racially motivated crimes and incidents against houses of worship reported to the division’s Criminal Section. In 2007, that number was 256 — a decrease of 68 percent for the decade.

As for criminal cases, the Justice Department charged 76 individuals in 1997, and the number has declined in the decade since. Charges have been filed in only 15 cases so far this year.

There must be a lot of secret investigations to make up for this such as huge drop off.

Check out Thursday’s CNN news clip on the march.

Here is Micheal Mukasey’s statement on the march.

Statement of Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey Regarding Thursday’s Civil Rights March

In recent months, there have been reports of nooses and other symbols of racial and religious hate appearing in schools, work places, and neighborhoods across the country. These symbols of hate have no place in our great country. As part of the Justice Department’s racial threats initiative, the Department – including the Civil Rights Division, the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Federal Bureau of Investigation – is working in partnership with state and local law enforcement and civil rights organizations to investigate aggressively dozens of noose-hangings and other recent racially and religiously motivated threats around the country. In order to be most effective, these investigations do not occur in the public eye.

The Justice Department shares with those who demonstrate today their objective of bringing to justice those who commit criminal acts of hate; it shares their vision of eradicating hate in our society. At the same time, the Department must follow the law and the principles of federal prosecution in every case it investigates and prosecutes. Although there are limitations and challenges in bringing successful hate crimes prosecutions, the Department takes each case seriously, and is prepared to vindicate the rights of the victims when prosecution is warranted by the facts and by federal law.

The mission of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is as vital today as when it was created 50 years ago. Those who march today should be commended for highlighting the issues of tolerance and civil liberties. We hope that all can agree that it is the criminals who commit violent acts of hate who deserve the loudest protest. And as long as hatred and racism exist, the Justice Department will continue its hard and effective work on behalf of all victims of hate crimes.

###

Check out Rosa Clemente, the Executive Director of the Hip Hop Caucus, explain the aims of the march on Democracy NOW! from the activist perspective.

Obama Undercuts Himself

In his distinctive high-toned and self assured voice, Sen. Obama made an early thinly veiled swipe at Sen. Hillary Clinton during the CNN debate last night when he said:

Senator Clinton, I think, is a capable politician and I think that she has run a terrific campaign.

But what the American people are looking for right now is straight answers to tough questions, and that is not what we’ve seen out of Senator Clinton on a host of issues — on the issue of drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants.

We saw in the last debate that it took not just that debate, but two more weeks before we could a clear answer, in terms of where her position was.

But then a few moments later he offered this tortured response to the drivers’ license issue himself.

OBAMA: When I was a state senator in Illinois, I voted to require that illegal aliens get trained, get a license, get insurance to protect public safety. That was my intention. And — but I have to make sure that people understand. The problem we have here is not driver’s licenses. Undocumented workers do not come here to drive.

They don’t go — they’re not coming here to go to the In-N-Out Burger. That’s not the reason they’re here. They’re here to work. And so instead of being distracting by what has now become a wedge issue, let’s focus on actually solving the problem that this administration, the Bush administration, had done nothing about it.

BLITZER: ….Do you support or oppose driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants?

OBAMA: I am not proposing that that’s what we do.

What I’m saying is that we can’t…

No, no, no, no. Look, I have already said, I support the notion that we have to deal with public safety and that driver’s licenses at the same level can make that happen.

But what I also know…

BLITZER: All right…

OBAMA: But what I also know, Wolf, is that if we keep on getting distracted by this problem, then we are not solving it.

BLITZER: But — because this is the kind of question that is sort of available for a yes or no answer.

(LAUGHTER)

Either you support it or you oppose it.

Of course, there is an argument to be made that this is not exactly a yes or no question. Many people object to the framing of the issue because it does imply that you are for open borders, which few people support. Plus, its framed in such a way that presumes any position on the issue can be taken as indication on where people stand on the greater issue of comprehensive immigration reform.

But Obama should have known this question was coming and paid attention to how Clinton repositioned herself on the eve of the debate. She is not going to support a plan as controversial as this when her own governor, who introduced such a plan in New York, ditched it after seeing how radioactive it was.

Obviously, since Obama voted for a similar measure as a state Senator in Illinois he cannot disavow support for it now, but he should have seen this coming and had a prepared response. Besides when you vote for a bill as a lawmaker you cannot say later on “I am not proposing that that’s what we do.”

Obama’s reply is not even close to being the straight forward answer he criticized Hillary for not providing during the last debate. And what makes it so odd is that it was on the same issue. In fact, it was him that sounded as if he was trying to have it both ways.

That said however, I have to admit that it was right of him to point out that the drivers’ license issue is a political distraction ginned up to divert attention from the more pressing problem: fixing the broken system that is immigration. Few people will appreciate that distinction, however, and this issue will come back to hurt him in Iowa and other early primary states.

Obama definitely undercut himself on this issue.

A Boss Like You

I stumbled on this thought provoking post on 60 Second Science. I do find the claim all that convincing, but that’s just me.

Social psychologists from the University of Granada found that bosses who feel insecure or unqualified to hold their position often choose to hire and surround themselves with less competent people. On the contrary, bosses who feel qualified prefer to hire exceedingly competent people who can take on responsibility.

Researchers divided subjects into two groups, one was told they were qualified for their position of power, while the others were told they were not. All were instructed to choose between a very competent and sociable subordinate and a person with noticeably less competence and sociability.

“The illegitimate bosses preferred the less competent and sociable candidates in a higher proportion than did the legitimate bosses. In addition to this they requested more information about the candidate positively described than about the candidate described more negatively.”

But what about bosses with an unwarranted amount of self-confidence or who are just plain lazy? I suppose that’s why some of them “felt” qualified, whether or not they were is up for debate.