The American Spectator

In light of recent talk of moats and alligators, Mark Salter recalls circa-2005 Obama’s efforts to scuttle immigration reform on behalf of big union interests and to prevent a president from the wrong political party from taking credit amongst hispanics for getting it done:

As an aide to McCain, I was in the room for every one of those meetings. It was my first opportunity to observe Obama closely. During those meetings, I never saw him engage in any discussion concerned with building a majority vote in favor of the legislation. In the meetings he attended, he would draw from his shirt pocket a 3x5 index card, on which he had written changes he insisted be made to the bill before he would support it. They were invariably the same demands made by the AFL-CIO, which was intent on watering down or killing the guest-worker provisions. Republicans and Democrats alike were irritated by his transparently self-interested behavior, but tried to negotiate with him. He remained adamant in his positions and unwilling to compromise. 

This perfidy of yore is not exactly a great argument against immigration reform — whatever that currently amorphous aspirational cloud ultimately transforms into — but Salter does make a pretty irrefutable case for the president coming down off his high horse long enough to reacquaint himself with the mud he flung a few short years ago.