I certainly am glad that General Kelly is using his magic generalship to establish balance and humanity within Camp Runamuck. Politico presents us with further evidence of the moderating general influence of his moderate generalism.

During the impromptu, 18-minute gaggle, Kelly also went into a lengthy and vigorous defense of the Trump administration’s broad framework of what it would like to see in a Dreamers deal. Kelly called the plan “generous,” particularly the provisions that expanded the universe of Dreamers eligible for a pathway to citizenship from the estimated 690,000 current DACA recipients to 1.8 million young undocumented immigrants who came here as minors. That expansion covers immigrants who some say "were too afraid to sign up, others would say were too lazy to get off their asses" to register for the program, Kelly said. “I can’t imagine men and women of goodwill who begged this president to solve the problem of DACA, as generous is that [Trump's proposal] has been, I can’t imagine they would vote against it. I mean, this is more than they could’ve imagined.”

Well, not exactly. For example, a DACA application costs $500. A great number of all Americans don’t have $500. And what embattled person wouldn’t accept such a luxurious deal from an administration that thinks they’re "too lazy to get off their asses"? And then there’s this.

“Mr. Obama established the program, and it was considered to be unconstitutional, not based on any law,” Kelly said after leaving a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “So the extension, I’m not so sure the president, this president, has the authority to extend it.”

As far as I know, President Obama’s DACA program never has been declared to be unconstitutional in any court of law. It is “considered to be unconstitutional” by conservative scholars and pundits, but that doesn’t really count, no matter how much Kelly would like it to matter. There’s a lot of the old ethnic Boston in this guy. That is not a compliment.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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