A testy President Obama, challenged on multiple fronts by an agressive correspondent during an interview with Univision Thursday, lectured Latinos on the U.S. system of government after being confronted with his failure to keep his promise to reform the U.S. immigration system.
“You promised that, and a promise is a promise, and with all due respect, you didn’t keep that promise,” Univision Correspondent Jorge Ramos reminded Obama in the kind of directness so often missing from White House correspondents’ questioning of the president.
Clearly annoyed, Obama blamed Congress for inaction on immigration, offering a haughty description of basic U.S. civics to make the point.
“We’ve had this conversation before,” Obama admonished Ramos. “There’s the thinking that the president is somebody who is all-powerful and can get everything done. In our system of government, I am the head of the exectuve branch. I’m not the head of the legislature; I’m not the head of the judiciary. We have to have cooperation from all these sources in order to get something done.”
Ramos, a Mexican immigrant, has lived in the United States for nearly 30 years, won eight Emmy awards for excellence in journalism, and presumably understands the U.S. system of government.
Let’s go to the videotape.
Note that Obama claims he didn’t promise to get “everything done, 100 percent,” apparently referring to his immigration agenda.
In fact, he did, he did make such a promise.
In 2008, Obama vowed to “put an end to the petty partisanship” and pass comprehensive immigration reform by the end of his first term by making it a “top priority.”
Obama instead made other initiatives his top priorities.
With Democrats in control of both the House and Senate – the ideal moment to pass whatever he wanted – Obama in 2009 first moved an $800 billion “stimulus” bill that was loaded with long-desired Democratic spending initiatives.
He then made a choice, deciding to spend the rest of his political capital not on immigration reform but on health care, successfully getting Congress to approve the initiative that mattered most to him and many Democrats, Obamacare.
