FEAR HIM NOT – AT 7:44 P.M. ET:  President Obama must now put down a revolt within his own party, and instigated by a fellow Illinoisan.  The cause?  Immigration reform, one of the most boiling of the hot-button issues.  The revolt demonstrates that people in his own party no longer fear Obama, a weakening president.  From Fox:

Forget the Tea Parties. President Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress have another rebellion on their hands -- led by a fellow Democrat from Obama's home state.

Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez is turning up the volume on his already piercing criticism of the Obama administration for failing to tackle immigration reform and is now threatening to rally Hispanics to stay home on Election Day.

When a Chicago Democrat threatens to hold back voters, dead ones or living ones, that is news.

Gutierrez took his criticism a step further Tuesday, holding a news conference on Capitol Hill with other Latino lawmakers to slam a bill making its way toward the governor's desk in Arizona that would give state officials broad new powers to arrest people suspected of being illegal immigrants -- a bill Gutierrez blames in part on Obama.

Gutierrez said the measure will only lead to "violations of people's basic fundamental civil rights" and called on the president to make clear that federal policy preempts "all state laws."

COMMENT:  Now it is true that Gutierrez is a firebrand, somewhat to the left of Vlad Lenin, but this challenge to the president is extraordinary, especially coming from a representative of a sympathetic ethnic caucus.  Politicians can sense weakness and vulnerability.  It is being sensed.

April 21, 2010