Immigration

As Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) calls conservatives who oppose the immigration bill bigots and promises to shut them up, the president calls them unpatriotic and turns his demonization politics against the Republican Party’s base.

Here is the state of play for Republicans: the conservative Republicans accuse progressive Democrats of being unpatriotic, while the president accuses conservative Republicans of being unpatriotic.

The worm turns.

The revolution begins.

Already the pundit class proclaims how the Democrats are enjoying this. Read more...

Proving just how inept the White House is at communicating its message on illegal immigration is this bizarre talking point out of a Wall Street Journal op-ed today, penned by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman:

“Hispanics are also the fastest growing segment of our population. Salsa outsells ketchup and tacos outsell hot dogs. One out of eight people under 35 in Nebraska is Hispanic.”

I’m not exactly sure what the salsa vs. ketchup argument is supposed to prove. I’m a white woman (full disclosure: over the age of 35 and not living in Nebraska) who eats more salsa than ketchup. And I’ve probably consumed more tacos this year than hot dogs. So what’s the point?

Here’s something for Mehlman and Bush to chew on: If you put Velveeta cheese and a jar of salsa in a bowl and microwave it, you get chili con queso dip. Makes you think, doesn’t it?  Read more...

I know this is hard to believe, but I began this blog post yesterday with the idea of praising President Bush. I thought, you know, Bush is getting a bum rap on his immigration reform proposal. He has stuck by the importance of actually solving the problem, getting something done, producing a compromise plan and working with all sides.

And I actually feel that he believes in a humane, comprehensive plan that treats people fairly and deals with the need for enforcement and border control. He, of all people, understands the issue from his days as governor of Texas and has been totally consistent for years.

OK, so what happened?

Bush goes to Georgia and attacks his opponents (primarily Republicans this time) with accusations that they have not read the bill, that “they don’t want to do what’s right for America” and they want to “frighten people.” Read more...

How liberating it must be to not have to face another election!

President Bush is calling them as he sees them. And as he sees it, the conservative critics of his immigration bill are way out of bounds.

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

I support the immigration bill. I think it is important to get something done and get it done this year, for our nation’s economy and security. I also think it could be good politically for the Republican Party. We need to get to be able to compete for the Hispanic vote if we want to be the majority party in the long term, and getting this bill done could help us.

But the president needs to engage the critics of the bill in a constructive way. Saying that they haven’t read the bill insults their intelligence and is easily disprovable. Calling concerns “empty political rhetoric” and critics “fear-mongers” doesn’t help. And it certainly won’t help get the bill done in the House. Read more...

The conservative right is in full fury opposing the deal cooked up by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) for immigration reform. The full impact of the storm is likely to be felt by McCain as he offers himself as a candidate for the GOP nomination. The deal, of course, is good precisely because it pleases nobody. The right hates the idea that 12 million people who came here illegally can stay and work. The Hispanics hate that they have to pay $5,000 each, can't become citizens until they return to their country of origin, and cannot bring their famlies in. The left hates that the border fence and increased guards are prerequisites for the bill's implementation. The Democrats hate that the 12 million illegals won't be able to vote for a decade more. The Republicans hate that they will be able to vote eventually.

It’s a deal only a congressional insider could love. But Bush, Kennedy, Kyl, Graham and the other Senate supporters don't have to run in Republican primaries. McCain does, and he will not be lightly forgiven his apostasy in crafting this hodgepodge. Remember in evaluating this bill that a camel is a horse designed by a committee.

Immigration. Complicated isn’t the half of it; 380 pages and counting. Anyone can demagogue this baby.

I have to say, however, that I have great admiration for the senators from both sides of the aisle who have worked tirelessly, day in and day out, to craft a bill that goes to the heart of what the legislative process should be all about.

At the risk of pulling a “I remember the good old days” line, I have certain nostalgic feelings for my tenure as a young staff aide in the Senate in the ’70s and as a page in the mid-1960s. I remember the intense back-and-forth of civil rights bills, the compromises, the arm-twisting by Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey; I remember working on legislation growing out of Frank Church’s Intelligence Committee investigations on domestic surveillance; the Panama Canal Treaties; environmental legislation that changed the country. Read more...

The Republican Party can decide whether it lives or dies by whether or not it blocks the immigration compromise from passing this year. If the GOP prevents it from going through and a Democratic president pushes it through a Democratic Congress in 2009, the GOP will suffer as much among Hispanic voters as it did among black voters after Barry Goldwater crusaded agianst the Civil Rights Bill in his 1964 election campaign. Until Goldwater did that, blacks usually voted Republican. Kennedy won over about 60 percent of them when he called Coretta Scott King while her husband was in jail. But LBJ got the 90 percent of the black vote that has since become his party's expected share as a direct result of Goldwater's campaign.

If the Republican Party passes this bill while a GOP president can still sign it and take partisan credit for it, it will have a very good chance of winning the Latino vote in the future. If not, the party will be ground under the demographic changes in America just as the Labor Party was in the early years of the 20th century.

The marketplace works in strange ways.

The marketplace works in the American economy to create a vociferous demand for both cheap labor and highly skilled labor.

Cheap labor continues to flow across the border because the marketplace needs the labor to get done. From picking oranges to working in chicken-plucking factories, the labor needs to get done cheaply.

There are not enough American workers who are willing to do the job. If there were no jobs for these unskilled laborers, who come from Central America, Eastern Europe and all parts of Asia, it is highly unlikely that they would come here in such numbers.

The marketplace has overwhelmed the laws that govern this nation, making those laws largely irrelevant. That is why the Senate and the president have attempted to change the laws governing unskilled labor and immigration.

Read more...

Flip-flops. John Kerry must be mad as hell. This crowd of Republicans is making his much publicized comment, “I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it” look like a simple statement of fact.

What I wonder is, has the flood of flip-flops from the Republicans made it safe to change positions at will? Does anybody in the Republican Party care about the about-faces that these candidates are engaging in on a daily basis? These aren’t evolving positions, these aren’t candidates getting wiser or processing new information — these are all about integrity and core beliefs versus putting your finger up to the political winds and going whichever way the wind is blowing that day.

Romney is the ultimate weathervane in a hurricane. More pro-gay rights than Ted Kennedy, now gay bashing. Pro-gun control, pro-Brady bill, pro-assault weapons ban, now a “hunter” (twice) and a lifetime member of the NRA (since last August). Pro-choice, now pro-life. For immigration reform, now against it. Read more...

Hats off to the earnest and dedicated lawmakers who spent months behind closed doors trying to solve one the country’s worst problems while their colleagues competed for air time on the Iraq war. But it’s already hard to believe this hard fought immigration compromise has a pulse.

It would be mighty impressive if the new Democratic majority actually tried to get this sick and dying patient to the hospital, to surgery and to stability. But it’s more likely they drive the ambulance down a dark alley and dump it. Helping President Bush win one for the legacy might sound alright — on their most generous day — if it didn’t guarantee the Democrats so much trouble. Just after gaining power are they eager to take something on that rankles black voters, Hispanic voters, labor unions and big business all at once? Read more...