Kevin Drum on how John Boehner may let immigration reform pass but in a way that allows many members of his party to condemn it.
This kind of thing is not new. A lot of our Congressfolks and Senators are secretly for a lot of things they say they're against and vice-versa. Years ago, after Tip O'Neill stepped down as Speaker of the House, he appeared on an interview show — I'm thinking it was Lou Gordon's — and he discussed this. Said Tip, one of the secrets to his job was being able to count votes in order to be able to give the guys on his side (Democrats) permission to vote contrary to the party position. There was a bill — I don't recall what it was — that Democrats wanted to pass and Republicans didn't…but there were Southern Democrats who'd pay a price for that at the ballot box. So O'Neill said something like, "I had to make sure we had enough votes so certain Democrats could vote against it and scream about it but it would still pass. Every one of those guys wanted it to pass and would have voted for it if that had been necessary. But in their districts, it was not popular and…well, they were pretty damn happy when I could tell them, 'I've got enough votes locked up. You can vote against it.' One of them went out and denounced it as a monstrosity and an affront to human decency."