Out of the Barn and onto the Third Rail

It's hard not to feel sorry for President Bush on the subject of immigration. He is stuck between a rock and a hard place (or, as Rush Limbaugh would say, the horse is out of the barn and hit the third rail). There seems to be no political will in Congress to really get tough with illegal immigrants, and yet the people out there in what those snobby elitists in New York and Los Angeles call "flyover country" want every Mexican rounded up and tossed out of the country regardless of whether or not they have a green card.

So what's a president (and one from Texas, at that) to do?

What he does, of course, is waffle. I think that Republicans call it "flip-flopping" -- at least, that's what they call it when they accuse Democrats of doing it.

For example, in his address, Bush stated:

"We are a nation of laws, and we must enforce our laws. We are also a nation of immigrants, and we must uphold that tradition, which has strengthened our country in so many ways. These are not contradictory goals."

Well, there's no getting around the fact that giving illegal immigrants amnesty (which is what Bush is proposing, although from the looks of it he would rather have been set on fire than use the actual word) is, in fact, rewarding illegal behavior. The message is pretty clear: all you have to do is get across the border any way you can, and eventually we'll reward you with amnesty. Crime pays.

On the other hand, Bush is trying, however clumsily, to address an inescapable reality. We have been able to control immigration in the past because people came here on ships, and if we didn't want them here (including the ships carrying refugees from Hitler's Germany), we could always make the ship turn around and go back to where it came from.

But that's not possible in this case. We have a 2,000-mile border with Mexico, running across four states, and it's impossible to defend. Building a wall, as some on the right have suggested, is just stupid (and besides, as others have retorted in reply, who would build it?). The National Guard is stretched too thin in Iraq to adequately guard our borders, and as Bush rightly said the other night:

"Some in this country argue that the solution is to deport every illegal immigrant and that any proposal short of this amounts to amnesty. I disagree. It is neither wise nor realistic to round up millions of people, many with deep roots in the United States, and send them across the border. There is a rational middle ground between granting an automatic path to citizenship for every illegal immigrant, and a program of mass deportation."

Of course, his "middle ground" amounts to amnesty, whether he's willing to use the word or not.

This, of course, is giving Republicans (none of whom will ever be able to vote for George W. Bush again) conniptions.

As Rush Limbaugh says:

"You know, I'll tell you what, this issue is causing more divisions in the Republican Party than any issue that I can recall in a long time, including the Dubai Ports deal. I can't recall an issue. […] There have been some, but I can't think of any single issue which has Republicans/conservatives more up in arms than this one -- and particularly with the apparent lack of response at the highest levels of government, House, Senate, White House."

Throw the wetbacks out! seems to be the rallying cry on the right.

Peggy Noonan thinks it's all about politics, and that politicans are more interested in Mexican votes than in the outrage of their legal citizen (read: Anglo) constituents:

"The disinterest in the White House and among congressional Republicans in establishing authority on America's borders is so amazing--the people want it, the age of terror demands it--that great histories will be written about it. Thinking about this has left me contemplating a question that admittedly seems farfetched: Is it possible our flinty president is so committed to protecting the Republican Party from losing, forever, the Hispanic vote, that he's decided to take a blurred and unsatisfying stand on immigration, and sacrifice all personal popularity, in order to keep the party of the future electorally competitive with a growing ethnic group?"

In other words, if we don't suck up to the Mexicans now, they'll all end up voting Democratic the way Southern whites voted Republican after the Civil Rights Act of '64, and we'll be in deep electoral doo-doo for the forseeable future.

And you know what? They could be right on that.

Cal Thomas takes a more xenopohobic approach:

"Throughout his address, the president kept referring to the immigrants and their rights and desires. What about those of us born in America, or who legally immigrated to this country? Don't we have a right to preserve the nation the way it was handed down to us, with our English language, our culture and our loyalty to this country? […] This is about more than politics and votes. It goes to the nature of who and what we are. Current citizens had better make sure this is not an invasion masquerading as immigration."

The wetbacks are coming! The wetbacks are coming! Grab your pitchfork, Muffy -- we're off to defend our Aryan way of life!

My favorite comment on this issue is from the bleached-blonde Mohammad Atta of the radical right, whom I very much doubt I need to name here. But her statement clearly proves that, just as Lyndon Johnson knew he'd lost Vietnam when Walter Cronkite turned against it, when this peroxide-headed bulemic says something this extreme about a president of her own party, that president has completely lost the support of the lunatic right on the subject of immigration:

"On the bright side, if President Bush's amnesty proposal for illegal immigrants ends up hurting Republicans and we lose Congress this November, maybe the Democrats will impeach him and we'll get Cheney as president."

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Tom Moran

Note: In case you're wondering where I got the title for this blog entry, here's the Rush Limbaugh statement that inspired it: "Then we got the third rail of third rails here, illegal immigration, and the horses are out of the barn on this. You can lock the door to the barn all you want, and you can say (muttering), but when the horses are gone, the horses are gone, and this is one of these issues."