MITT ROMNEY'S MYSTERIOUS VIEWS ON IMMIGRATION BY EUGENE ROBINSONWASHINGTON POST...[I]f taking action on the immigration issue is good politics for Obama and the Democrats, then Republicans have only themselves to blame. The GOP has made a conscious decision to offer nativists and xenophobes a comfortable home where their extremist views go unchallenged. No one should be surprised if voters who think differently about immigration issues - including some who are recent immigrants themselves - feel unwelcome.DON'T LOOK DOWNBY FRANK BRUNINEW YORK TIMESSomewhere between Nik Wallenda's first step onto a tightrope over Niagara Falls and Greece's most recent retreat from the brink, it hit me: teetering needlessly on the precipice of disaster wasn't just the story of the weekend. It's the story of our days. ...Greece's limbo underscores Europe's inability to determine once and for all how much it's willing to invest in the future of the euro. The Continent's leaders make micro adjustments in lieu of a macro commitment or big decision of any kind. The suspense sometimes shifts locus - today Greece, tomorrow Spain or Italy - but doesn't end. That mirrors the serial uncertainty on the opposite side of the Atlantic, where the United States Congress, inept at so very much, excels at catastrophic scenarios and suffixes. It has mastered the -mageddon.
Must-Read Op-Eds for Monday, June 18, 2012
EGYPT'S DEMOCRACY INTERRUPTEDEDITORIALNEW YORK TIMESEgyptians made their revolution and ultimately must make it succeed. The reformers are going to have to regroup. They will be stronger if they work together. And they will be stronger if they have less equivocal backing from the Obama administration, which was quiet for too long. It sent the wrong message in March when it resumed military aid to Egypt -$1.3 billion annually - after a five-month hiatus, even though the generals had not repealed the emergency law or dropped prosecutions against employees of four American-financed democracy groups. The administration should have delayed some of the aid to show firm support for the democratic process. ... The United States needs to work with Egypt to maintain the peace treaty and a stable border with Israel. But an undemocratic Egypt in perpetual turmoil is no help to its own people or Israel or the rest of the region.OBAMA'S KEY SWING VOTERS ARE IN EUBY MATTHEW STEVESONPOLITICOOne reason the European economy could force its way into the Electoral College is that the United States has no seat at the negotiation tables deciding whether Greece quits the common currency or if European banks are worthy of more bailouts. Why? The U.S. position on Europe's problemsis: "Include me out." The Obama administration remains emotionally and financially distant from the continental drift. ...For all that candidate Obama barnstormed across Europe (Berlin speech: "America has no better partner than Europe"), the president's attitude toward the continent sounds like that of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in Munich in 1938. "How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is," Chamberlain said, "that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing."A LEADERLESS WORLDEDITORIALWALL STREET JOURNAL...[T]he substitute for U.S. leadership is not a new era of U.N.-administered peace. It is often a vacuum filled by the world's nastiest actors. That is nowhere clearer than in Syria, where Russia and Iran have a free run to fortify the Assad dictatorship. The price is high in human slaughter, but it may be higher still in showing other dictators that it hardly matters anymore if an American President declares that you "must go." What matters is if you have patrons in Moscow, Beijing or Tehran. ...There are always limits to U.S. power, and American leadership does not mean intervening willy-nilly or militarily.It does require, however, that an American President believe that U.S. pre-eminence is desirable and a source for good, and that sometimes this means leading forcefully from the front even if others object.