Bob Franken

Dec 04, 20140

Now that Barack Obama, with his immigration executive order, has taken off the gloves and, in effect, raised that time-honored gesture of defiance to Republican “members of Congress who question my authority.” They are angrily throwing down their own gauntlets, basically saying that he and (to quote John Boehner) his “lawless” presidency are toast, with no chance they’ll deal with him.

Don’t you believe it. We certainly can expect the GOP House and Senate to do their very best to make Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and Capitol Hill a war zone. But that doesn’t mean they won’t be willing to have temporary ceasefires. Even though immigration has now been slammed onto the table, the people on both sides have plenty of other cards in their hand.

Our political leaders have lots of items they might very well negotiate. For instance, you might think that the Keystone pipeline is a pipe dream for the oil industry and other investors who want to take the petroleum glop they’ve pulled out of the tar sands in Canada and transport it to ships waiting in the Gulf of Mexico, or worse, from the environmentalist perspective, that this is a dirty, crude way to extract dirty crude and that there’s always a danger of a massive spill.

You might be surprised to learn, though, that Republicans and organized labor are united on this one, arguing that it’s a jobs-producer that helps advance the goal of energy independence. Whatever, ultimately, POTUS, through the State Department, must approve the massive project, particularly now that the Senate wasn’t able to pass legislation that would have forced him to, short of a veto.

Certainly, the green activists are a key Obama constituency, but let us not forget that Mr. Obama is done running for office. To put it bluntly, he doesn’t need anybody anymore. So there is no friends-of-the-earthly reason he can’t decide to throw his supporters from the anti-pollution movement under the bus, or in this case under the pipeline. And he just might if the right concessions come along from his enemies to the right.

If they give in on his infrastructure demands, for instance, maybe combined with a tax package, then helloooo Keystone pipeline. Of course, that’s assuming the Republicans aren’t so consumed with fury over his immigration move that they go into their fight-or-spite mode and make fools of themselves by shutting down the government, or deciding to push impeachment.

All they will accomplish is destroying their credibility still again and, while they’re at it, inflicting considerable damage to the country. On the former point, since the latter doesn’t seem to matter anymore, they will probably succeed in electing Hillary Clinton president.

But if sanity prevails, and that’s a big “if,” then paradoxically all this fury could end up producing some sound government as the bitter adversaries who run it temporarily remember that governing is what they’re supposed to be doing.

In a democracy, that means compromise — give and take, not take and take. Those who are speaking loudly are actually carrying a small stick. They want to flog the other side into submission, but they end up hurting themselves. And, of course, all of us.

(Bob Franken is a syndicated columnist)

Distributed by King Features Synd.