For a while there it looked like John Boehner, the embattled House Speaker, had finally reined in the fanatical Tea Party wing of his caucus.

After all, it was just two months ago when Boehner wrangled 169 Republican votes – with just 62 dissenting – to approve the Bipartisan Budget Act and avoid taking the government over the fiscal cliff in January. And as recently as last week it was Boehner who unveiled a "statement of principles" designed to win support for his biggest legislative priority of 2014: an immigration bill. We can work with the White House on this one, he indicated time and again.

That was then. Now, the old John Boehner – the Boehner of shutdowns, obstructionism and capitulation to the far right – is back. All of a sudden this Boehner doubts there will be an immigration bill this year, and it's – shocker – all Barack Obama's fault.

"Listen, there's widespread doubt about whether this administration can be trusted to enforce our laws," Boehner said Thursday. "The American people, including many of my members, don't trust that the [immigration] reform that we're talking about will be implemented as it was intended to be."

Of course, this statement, ostensibly about immigration, is really about the Affordable Care Act, the bête noire of the Republican Party and the one issue it has obsessed over for the last five years. House Republicans, who hate the ACA and have held more than 40 failed votes to repeal it, complain that Obama's selective enforcement of the law means that he would apply similarly loose standards to any immigration bill. In other words, we hate Obamacare – but why aren't you enforcing it?

Republicans have a point. The President has acted on his own to change the timeline for implementing parts of the healthcare law; they also worry about Obama's vow to go around Congress whenever possible with a flurry of executive orders. But on this latter point, the GOP's memory is selective. Hardliners bellow that Obama has run amok with his executive orders, seemingly ignoring the fact that the 167 orders Obama issued in his first five years in office pale in comparison to their hero Ronald Reagan's 256 at the similar point in his presidency. Facts, as John Adams was fond of saying, are stubborn things.

In any case, the White House dismisses all of this and throws the blame right back in the GOP's face.

"I think that the challenges within the Republican Party on this issue are well known and they certainly don't have anything to do with the president," press secretary Jay Carney said Thursday with his trademark smirk. The calculus in the West Wing is that Republican infighting can only benefit the President.

Why the about face on immigration for Boehner? His hold on the Speaker's gavel is tenuous; there could be a challenge next January when the new Congress is sworn in, and he wants to protect his flank from far right attacks. Boehner also knows that if the GOP stalls, it will be dealt a stronger hand come January: midterm elections almost always favor the party that is not in control of the White House and this November promises to be no different. As things look now, Republicans are likely to add between four and six seats to their already substantial House majority (they currently number 232 to the Democrats' 200), and there is a 50-50 shot of them picking up the six seats they need to retake the Senate. Boehner's new reasoning: Why not wait? Come January, we can strike an even better deal. Whether it's a better deal for the focus of any immigration bill – Hispanics – is doubtful; some 40% of House Republicans fiercely oppose granting permanent residency to undocumented immigrants ("illegals" in GOP speak).

There is a third reason for stalling on immigration. Republicans want Obamacare to be the singular focus for the November midterm election; they're sure it's a winner for them. It very well could be. The Real Clear Politics average of all recent polling says just 38% of Americans approve of Obamacare with 52% disapproving. The president's overall job performance is similarly lackluster, with 43% approving, and 52 % disapproving.

But what Republicans don't seem to realize is that unhappiness with Obamacare should not be construed as an endorsement of them or their hardline tactics. A recent poll showed that only an anemic 17% of Americans approved of the performance of GOP leaders. Republicans cackling at Obama's poor numbers is akin to the captain of the Titanic poking fun of someone else's poor seamanship.