Republicans certain to reject Obama’s plan to streamline government

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Updated: February 16, 2012 8:20AM

Say Mitt Romney were to suddenly realize that our refusal to reform the U.S. immigration system is one of the great moral failings of our time. Say he pledged himself to aid the 12 million undocumented immigrants who we’ve allowed to enter our country and work here for decades in rightless serfdom, and rejected the impossible bigot’s fantasy of sending them all back.

I like to think I would consider supporting Romney on that point alone. Barack Obama certainly has let the matter slide, and I might ignore Romney’s other right-wing stances.

I don’t risk much, saying that, since there is no chance of Romney embracing so necessary a policy. In fact, Romney just welcomed the endorsement of Kris Kobach, the architect of the disastrous immigration policies in Arizona and Alabama. But should he twirl 180 degrees around — and God knows he’s capable — I would then at least consider backing him, because the important thing is what policies are enacted, not who proposes them.

You’d think this would be the standard practice. You’d think that, should Obama ask Congress to let him, oh, streamline government commerce agencies — as he did Friday — that Republicans, who say they’re all about cutting government, would let out a whoop of joy. But they won’t. Because Priority No. 1 — as they’ve baldly stated — is to defeat Obama. If he announced his belief in abstinence-only education, the Republicans would only see another reason to fight him. It’s puzzling.

When they don’t need us, we’re there

“Support our troops.” You’ve seen it a million times, on yellow ribbon magnets slapped on the backs of trucks. A pretty thought, but what does it mean? Smile at soldiers? Buy an enlisted man a beer should the chance arise?

In order to have any significance, “Supporting our troops” has to mean, “Support troops who need it.” Such as the four Marines videotaped urinating on corpses, a video that has roiled U.S./Afghani relations.

The tendency would be to cut these guys off, to let them hang. A stupid thing to do. The public would rather focus on heroes.

Who were the bodies being abused? The assumption is they were Taliban fighters who the Marines had just killed. The bad guys. It says something about our values that we will happily train young men to kill, equip them and transport them around the world on a mission to kill, have no problem with them killing, and then get upset because they rejoice in a deplorable fashion.

And it is deplorable — though desecrating a corpse, as a moral act, has to rank far below creating a corpse. The dead sure don’t care. Who cares are the Afghans, who aren’t hot on us to begin with, and the truly stupid part of this is the filming and posting of it, making us look like the bad guys, and allowing the Taliban to take the high road. “This was barbaric action,” said a Taliban spokesman. “And we deplore it.” I bet they do.

The government also cares, because this makes a hard job harder. Military justice, like regular justice, doesn’t take place in a vacuum. Public opinion matters. So take another look at the magnet on the back of your truck. It says “Support Our Troops,” not “Support Our Troops Unless They Need It.” The average soldier will be just fine without you. It’s these guys who could use some good karma. Too bad they dropped a wrench into our always touchy relationship with the Afghans and their with-friends-like-these-who-needs-enemies President Hamid Karzai. But let’s not sacrifice four foolish jarheads on the altar of appeasing the unappeasable. Let’s hope the dumb beast of military justice picks the lightest book it can to throw at them.

Kindness contagion spreads to readers!

I try not to use the column to do good, because then it would be a do-goody sort of column and you wouldn’t read it. But things happen. So when I was writing about the opera and the reader with cancer whose second wish was to go to the Lyric, I almost didn’t mention her first wish: a medical scooter to help her get to work. Because it was off point. But I also knew, if I did mention it, one big-hearted reader would step forward and offer to get her a scooter. Here I was mistaken — it wasn’t one, it was two. Thanks to you both, for reaching out to help someone in need, without even the prompt of Christmas. And I promise I’ll stop now.