President Obama had millions of people to select from in choosing a head of Homeland Security.
He chose Janet Napolitano, pulling her from her position as governor of Arizona. That put Republican Janice Brewer in Napolitan's place, as AZ Governor.
Brewer signed the hateful new immigration legislation into law.
NPR's John B. Judis writes, "The bill might not have become law if Democrat Janet Napolitano had
still been governor. Napolitano vetoed similar measures. And Arizona's
Latino community hoped that Brewer, who replaced Napolitano, would veto
it."
Obama not only set up the circumstances so a bill like this could pass, he set up Brewer to be an incumbent with an edge in the next election. Of course, Obama didn't do it alone. John Podesta, his transition director probably had a hand, as did his closest advisors.
Every decision has consequences. Obama took a gamble appointing Napolitano. Maybe he owed her a favor. It doesn't matter. The decision he made contributed to the passage of this bill. Who knows whether this bill be inspire copycats in other states? Sometimes a small step, what seems like a discrete, isolated decision has extended consequences. This is one of those cases.
update: I added this note in today's daily newsletter.
I am an eternal optimist, and I'm into positive psychology and positivity. It drives some of the people in my life crazy, the way I always try to see positives in things, the way I frame things positively. That applies to Obama too. Though I am profoundly disappointed with him so far, I still hold on to some hope that he will wake up and take the power we gave him and start doing real good, instead of selling out to corpos and banksters as he's done. And I'll call it for what it is when it comes to his role in enabling the racial profiling hate law that would not have passed if he hadn't appointed Janet Napolitano, vacating her seat and giving it to a republican.
Rob Kall is executive editor, publisher and site architect of OpEdNews.com, Host of the Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show (WNJC 1360 AM), President of Futurehealth, Inc, inventor . He is also published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com
With his experience as architect and founder of a technorati top 100 blog, he is also a new media / social media consultant and trainer for corporations, non-profits, entrepreneurs and authors.
Rob is a frequent Speaker on the bottom up revolution, politics, The art, science and power of story, heroes and the hero's journey, Positive Psychology, Stress, Biofeedback and a wide range of subjects. He is a campaign consultant specializing in tapping the power of stories for issue positioning, stump speeches and debates, and optimizing tapping the power of new media. He recently retired as organizer of several conferences, including StoryCon, the Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story and The Winter Brain Meeting on neurofeedback, biofeedback, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology. See more of his articles here and, older ones, here.
To learn more about me and OpEdNews.com, check out
A Voice For Truth - ROB KALL | OM Times Magazine and this article.And there are
Rob's quotes, here.
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here Now, wouldn't you like to see me on the political news shows, representing progressives. If so, tell your favorite shows to bring me on and refer them to this youtube video
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www.wnjc1360.com
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-While I'm registered as a Democrat, I consider myself to be a dynamic critic of the Democratic party, just as, well, not quite as much, but almost as much as I am a critic of republicans.
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