On Wednesday's AC360, CNN's Dana Bash was hesitant to address President Obama's past remarks on immigration reform, where he repeatedly denied that he couldn't act alone – to the point that she first touted the Democrat's supposed academic credentials. Host Anderson Cooper played five clips of Mr. Obama making this point, and underlined that "he said he couldn't do it in the past. He's now saying he can do it, and should do it, and will do it."
Cooper then asked Bash, "What's the White House spin on it?" The congressional correspondent led her answer with her citation of the President's past occupation in academia: [MP3 audio available here; video below]
DANA BASH: Well, first of all, we should also remind people that he's not just the President. He also is a constitutional – was a constitutional professor and a lawyer – so, he speaks from – from – you know, with academic knowledge. What Democrats are saying is – and the candid ones who I talk to – is that he did believe that, and he did prefer to go through Congress. When that was clear it wasn't going to happen – and he had a lot of meetings and a lot of pressure from immigration groups – that he told...his lawyers...in the White House and around the various agencies, get me to yes – figure out a way for me that I can get around the constitutional problems. And then, that is what they landed at – with this executive order.
The other thing that Democrats say is this is why the order will not include parents of 'dreamers' – parents who came here who are still undocumented immigrants – because that they felt is not within the bounds of his executive authority.
It should be pointed out that Mr. Obama actually taught constitutional law part time as a "lecturer" and later a "senior lecturer" at the University of Chicago Law School.
Bash continued by finally acknowledging the problematic nature of the chief executive's apparent flip-flop – mere seconds before the end of the segment: "So those are the kinds of things that they're arguing. It is not easy to argue when you have statements like that over and over, as you played, from the President."
Exactly two weeks earlier, the CNN journalist blamed Mitch McConnell and his fellow Senate Republicans for the federal government's "dysfunction" by stating that "Democrats probably rightly have a complaint that the reason the Senate isn't working is because Mitch McConnell and the opposition made it so."
