Obama Pushed Me

By Mr. Curmudgeon

It was Monday August 20, 1973, and comedian Joey Bishop was guest hosting NBC’s The Tonight Show. As the introduction music played, Bishop stumbled through the stage curtains, righted himself and announced, “I didn’t want to come out here but Nixon pushed me.”

Earlier that day, Watergate-embattled President Richard Nixon was in New Orleans to speak at the Rivergate Convention Center before the Veterans of Foreign Wars. As Nixon and state dignitaries approached the hall’s entrance, the president and his party were elbowed aside by a throng of press in a hurry to get out of the heat and anxious to find good seats. A furious Nixon turned to his press secretary Ron Ziegler, “I don’t want any press with me,” the Associated Press reported Nixon as saying.

The AP further noted, “Then, spinning Ziegler around, Nixon gave him a forceful shove with the order: ‘Take care of it!’”

Needless to say, television cameras captured the incident for that evening’s newscasts.

I thought of Nixon as President Obama made his immigration amnesty announcement from the White House Rose Garden last Friday – only to be interrupted by an elbowing press.

“This is not amnesty. This is not immunity. This is not a path to citizenship. It’s not a permanent fix,” insisted Obama, “This is a temporary, stopgap measure that lets us focus our resources wisely while giving a degree of relief and hope to talented, driven, patriotic young people. It is the right thing to do.” With this, a member of the press began shouting questions.

Looking up from his prepared remarks, the president turned his attention to the gaggle of press before him, “Excuse me, sir … ah … er … it’s not time for questions, sir,” said a stunned Obama to the noisy journalist.When the president eventually finished his announcement, he did a quick about face and attempted a hasty escape to the relative safety of the West Wing.

However, the insistent reporter managed to shout one last question before the president could reach the door, “What about American workers who are unemployed while you import foreigners?”

Obama’s announced policy allows an estimated 1.4 million illegal aliens now attending U.S. colleges to apply for amnesty. “President Obama has just opened a floodgate of opportunity for young illegal immigrants in the United States, but could it squeeze the aspirations of legal Americans in the process?” asked the Washington Post.

“Half of our college graduates today can’t find jobs, and the unemployment rate for high-school-aged Americans is extremely high. This is unfair to U.S. citizens and legal immigrants who are out there struggling to get ahead,” Brad Bowin, president of Help Save Maryland, told the Post.

Meanwhile in Florida, Attorney General Eric Holder recently filed suit to stop the Sunshine State from attempting to purge its voter rolls of suspected illegal immigrants, which the state estimates to be around 180,000.

Holder is attempting to enforce a provision of the 1993 Motor Voter Act, which prohibits states from asking individuals to prove their immigration status during the voter registration process. In Holder’s view, voter ID initiatives like Florida’s “have a racially discriminatory effect.”

The two Obama administration schemes above are compelling circumstantial evidence that a desperate incumbent president – confronted by rising unemployment, a shrinking economy, and a public no longer confident in his leadership abilities – is attempting to buy the votes of those in America illegally.

The president adds a new twist to his pandering by calling college-attending illegal aliens “patriotic young people.” By this definition, patriotism does not express love of country (in this case the United States of America), but one's love of Obama … and the taxes he “invests” in their future.

It’s a clear act of desperation by a failed president to salvage a failed economic plan that is a central component to his party’s failed Progressive ideology.

In a twist of supreme irony, the president and Holder are forced to appeal to illegal voters in whose home country they sell “Fast and Furious” weapons – enabling Mexican drug cartels to murder their suffering countrymen with impunity. Call it blood “stimulus.”

Meanwhile, back in the Rose Garden, the reporter who attempted to challenge the president’s assumptions, it turns out, works for the conservative website The Daily Caller. Neil Munro is a veteran Washington journalist who some may accuse of having an immigration ax to grind. You see, he’s a citizen of Ireland working in the United States legally. He has a valid green card. One can only wonder what will become of Munro’s immigration status in the days to follow – he, after all, does not vote.

At his deportation hearing, Munro can always claim in his defense, “I didn’t want to ask that question but Obama pushed me.”