Governing is More Than Saying "No"

 GOP leaders Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky)

Last night, President Obama spoke to the nation and outlined the executive action he is taking to move forward on immigration reform.  

what eye thynk:   In the countdown to the President's expected speech, before the details were known, Republicans were outraged. Now that the details have been made public, Republicans are outraged...and furious, and incensed and nearly spitting with apoplectic anger.

What they aren't, is prepared with an opposing policy suggestion of their own.  It's not like they haven't had time to write one.  The Senate's bi-partisan immigration bill landed on John Boehner's desk a year and a half ago.  This obvious lack of preparation, their inability to look forward, to complete, to move in any sense toward the presentation of a finished proposal, has been the modus operandi of the Republican party for the past six years. 

For 72 months, they have gotten away with standing before America empty-handed, offering nothing more than a sense of their own offended egos as policy. No more.  

As Ezra Klein pointed out last night: 

"Republicans aren't just the opposition party anymore.  They are, arguably, the governing party--they will soon control the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, most state legislatures, and more governorships.  And the governing party needs to solve--or at least propose solutions--to the nation's problems.  And that means the Republican policy on immigration needs to be something more than opposing Obama;s immigration policies.  It needs to be something more than vague noises about border security.

"There are 11 million unauthorized immigrants living in the country right now.  Congress allocates enough money to deport roughly 400,000 of the annually. Our policy towards the 10.6 million unauthorized immigrants we're not deporting is that we don't have a policy.  Democrats support a path to citizenship.  Republicans don't support anything...

...Even if you think (the President) is going too far, he at least wants to solve the problem.  Republicans don't seem to want to do anything except stop Obama from solving the problem." 

Instead of demonstrating a preparedness to take on the task of governing, Republican leadership is seriously considering, as Steve Benen wrote, "whether to shut down the government until the White House makes the GOP feel better. If that falls short, Republicans might weigh impeachment."

Quite simply, the GOP seems to have lost sight of the fact that governing means more than just saying "No."   They now have two months to cure their communal myopia, or risk being exposed as a party with no blueprint--empty suits animated only by hatred for the man American voters elected to the White House...twice.