Posted on '08 Election, Illegal Immigration

same difference

Senator Obama to the National Council of La Raza:

That’s what’s at stake this November. This election is nothing less than a test of our allegiance to the American Dream. And it’s a test of our commitment to all those who are counting on us to keep that Dream alive – the people you serve every day.

The 12 million people in the shadows, the communities taking immigration enforcement into their own hands, the neighborhoods seeing rising tensions as citizens are pitted against new immigrants…they’re counting on us to stop the hateful rhetoric filling our airwaves – rhetoric that poisons our political discourse, degrades our democracy, and has no place in this great nation. They’re counting on us to rise above the fear and demagoguery, the pettiness and partisanship, and finally enact comprehensive immigration reform.

There’s nothing wrong with requiring local, state, and federal governments to enforce existing immigration laws.  While there will always be those who oppose all immigration due to their own racial prejudices, that doesn’t represent the majority of those who support border enforcement and the rule of law.  Both McCain and Obama tend to blur the lines here by using the word immigrants instead of illegal immigrants. Those two terms are not the same.  I’m all in favor of legal immigration.  Most Americans support legal immigration.  We oppose people breaking the law to enter this country.  No apology should be necessary for that.

He continues:

Now, I know Senator McCain used to buck his party on immigration by fighting for comprehensive reform – and I admired him for it. But when he was running for his party’s nomination, he abandoned his courageous stance, and said that he wouldn’t even support his own legislation if it came up for a vote.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I think it’s time for a President who won’t walk away from something as important as comprehensive reform when it becomes politically unpopular. And that’s the commitment I’m making to you. I marched with you in the streets of Chicago. I fought with you in the Senate for comprehensive immigration reform. And I will make it a top priority in my first year as President. Not just because we need to secure our borders and get control of who comes into our country. And not just because we have to crack down on employers abusing undocumented immigrants. But because we have to finally bring those 12 million people out of the shadows.

Yes, they broke the law. And we should not excuse that. We should require them to pay a fine, learn English, and go to the back of the line for citizenship – behind those who came here legally. But we cannot – and should not – deport 12 million people. That would turn American into something we’re not; something we don’t want to be.

Both John McCain and Barack Obama are skilled at telling groups like La Raza what they want to hear about comprehensive immigration reform.  McCain may have fooled Barack Obama when he said all that stuff about securing the borders first, but everyone who was paying attention knew McCain didn’t really change his position on this.   You don’t co-sponsor a comprehensive immigration bill with Ted Kennedy, knowing the political fallout from that, without buying into the concept.

We can’t deport 12 million people.  No one is saying that we can.  But we should start by strengthening existing laws and tightening employer verification rules.  Those are good first steps.  Which of these men would support these provisions without adding the path to citizenship part to their new comprehensive immigration plan?  My guess is that neither man would.  If Senator Obama is serious about making enforcement of current laws part of his strategy to combat illegal immigration, then he might want to lay off some of his own derogatory rhetoric toward ICE — who he accused of “terrorizing communities” earlier in his remarks to La Raza  — because he will need their help with that.

2 Comments Posted on Conservatives, Republicans

tony snow

Tony Snow

Tony Snow has died today due to complications from his colon cancer, Fox News is reporting.  This is a sad day for conservatives — who are losing one of the most passionate defenders for conservatism that we could ever have.  He was never a politician, even though he worked for Bush 41 and 43.  He was a good guy, and someone I wish I had known. He loved this country, and always saw the positive side of life, and we can always be grateful that this man was there to remind us that it’s never as dark as we think it is.  This death is tragic for all of us, and especially his family and close friends, but at least we know that his struggle is over now.  Tony Snow has gone to be with his God, and that’s the most deserving reward for a life well-lived.

Rest in Peace, Snowman.  We’ll miss you.

More links and tributes coming as they become available.

Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals, Republicans

stubborn

I’ve said from the very beginning that I don’t believe that John McCain ever changed his mind about comprehensive immigration reform, so Byron York’s column in The Hill doesn’t surprise me.  McCain is quoted as saying that he learned his lesson from the immigration fight.  On the other hand, he still says that he’s glad he proposed the reform and would do it again.  We should be perfectly clear where McCain stands on this because he still believes that he was right on this issue.  Don’t be fooled.

That said, Barack Obama might want to reconsider attacking McCain on this issue. There’s no way Barack can say he’s to the right of McCain on illegal immigration — although he might be able to claim credit for not writing any comprehensive immigration reform bills. He hasn’t demonstrated any ability to improve upon McCain’s sad record, and at one point even supported driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants.  In addition to that, he voted for McCain-Kennedy before he supported some “poison pill” amendments to kill it.  Any discussion of McCain’s record on immigration would bring counter-attacks from the McCain camp about Barack’s record — and he might not want to go there.  John McCain and Barack Obama sometimes say the right things about securing the borders first, but I don’t believe either one of them, and there’s no reason to, based on their record in the Senate.

Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals, Random Musings

misdirection

We all want to believe in something greater than ourselves.  That’s a natural human desire.  When we see the imperfect world around us, and the struggles we face as Americans, we want to believe that it can be resolved in the striving of mere human effort — by electing politicians who share our desire to improve this country.  This is where the myth of Barack Obama started — that he wasn’t just any other politician.   We were asked to believe that Barack Obama, in addition to being a historical transformative figure as the Democratic nominee, was some kind of savior.   Who could forget Michelle Obama’s comment about our souls being broken, and her solution to those broken souls being her husband Barack?  Senator Clinton was right to mock this kind of talk.  No elected official will ever be a saint, much less a savior of all of us.   It’s interesting that so many people believe that this kind of spiritual void can be filled by a politician.

In the process of a campaign, we put our faith in a human being, who is just as imperfect as the rest of us (although possibly more photogenic).  Idealism gets shattered once in a while.  That’s just the nature of the game.  It’s unfortunate, but we all need a little bit of healthy skepticism when it comes to politicians, because even the good ones disappoint us on one issue or another.  If you want someone who can represent you well on policy matters,  do your homework and vote for the best candidate.  If you want someone to fix your soul, that’s beyond the ability of human politics.

Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals, Random Musings

oh ye of little faith

Fear not, liberals progressives.  Barack hasn’t abandoned you.  He still believes in all those progressive ideas he started out believing at the beginning of his primary campaign.  Pay no attention to the appearance of centrism you may think that you see.  The progressive Barack is the real Barack…and you can trust him on that.  For the record, I believe him. I think that all these attempts to paint Obama as a flip-flopper on Iraq are misguided, because his position has always been somewhat nuanced…except for the times he implied that he supported immediate withdrawal from Iraq.  This was the position progressives liked very much and many of them supported him over Hillary because they thought he was for immediate withdrawal.  Joke’s on them I guess.  It’s an unusual talent some of these Democrat politicians have — to convince each person that the politician actually shares their values.  Barack is especially good at doing this, and it shouldn’t come as a shock that he hasn’t been exactly what progressives expected him to be.

Those who bought into Barack’s promise of a new kind of politics must not have been around the game long enough to be cynical about promises like that.  It’s still hard to condemn the idealism that all these young voters have brought to the process.  We would all like to believe a candidate that we work for has the ability to be transformative and bring needed change to the Washington establishment.  When we find out that the guy or gal we campaign for isn’t everything we expected, it does cause some to be disallusioned with the process. But in this case, did these progressives believe that Barack was going to continue to speak their language going into the general election against John McCain?  Surely they know deep down Barack is still one of them, no matter what he’s saying right now. If not, they should believe it.  It’s far more likely that Barack will stay left once elected than it is that he will embrace some kind of new centrism that is closer to George W. Bush than it is to Bill Clinton.

Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

reshuffling the deck chairs

This weekend there were several articles about new and potential additions to the McCain campaign team that could help McCain stem the pro-Obama tide and keep him from suffering a painful loss to Obama in the fall.  If only this simple thing would completely solve McCain’s problems, then I would feel a whole lot better about his chances in November.  It won’t.  There are a few things that the best strategists in the world can’t fix for McCain — although I’m sure that we will see significant improvement over the status quo.

The McCain campaign has blown the head start they had back when McCain first clinched the Republican nomination.  They had the opportunity to define Barack Obama and to explain the glaring differences between McCain and Obama.  Consider this a missed opportunity. They allowed the narrative about Obama to be more about his questionable associations than about his policy positions,  and this was a mistake.  The Jeremiah Wright association raised some questions about Barack, no question, but this by itself isn’t enough to keep voters from voting for Barack Obama.  Much of this lack of contrast should be blamed on McCain’s staff.

It would take some kind of miracle worker to transform McCain into the polished product Obama has become (at least when he’s on script).   McCain can hire all of the brilliant strategists he can afford and keep reshuffling the deck chairs on the campaign team, and maybe he can improve enough so he’s not as painful to watch.   One thing all these strategists cannot fix is that after all the tweaks and suggestions they offer — McCain is still McCain.  He will always be a drastic contrast to Barack Obama.  He is older, less personable, way too familiar with the Washington crowd, and he doesn’t really enjoy talking to people.  Even many Republicans find Barack appealing, although they may find some of his policy proposals alarming.

McCain doesn’t fare quite so well in the popularity department.  He is a bona-fide expert at losing friends and alienating people in his own party.  Some Republicans can’t stand him and they would rather roll the dice with Obama than reward McCain with the presidency.  Deep down they know what the smart decision is (at least in my view) but it will be difficult for them to follow through when their nominee disagrees with them on more than one key issue  — not only that, but he actively disparages their views while pandering to the moderates/ independents.  One thing that could save McCain is if my fellow Republicans swallow their dislike of McCain at least until after the election and vote for him in order to keep Barack Obama from being our next president.  Even then, it might not be enough to put McCain over the top in November.  Good luck to the present and future strategists tasked with saving McCain.  It won’t be easy.

Posted on '08 Election, Liberals

out of touch

In case we have forgotten about the severe left-ward bent of the New York Times, a new editorial puts in all back into focus.  In “A Supreme Court on the Brink” they worry about the future direction of the Supreme Court, specifically that a McCain administration could undo all the liberal decisions the Supremes have made over the years, including Roe V. Wade.  This is a needless fear.   Not even Reagan managed to accomplish that goal, and McCain can hardly be accused of such extreme conservatism.  McCain will keep his word on this, if not on anything else, but conservatives shouldn’t get their hopes up that McCain could get a Samuel Alito or John Roberts through the expected Democratic majority in Congress.  Unless the Democrats inexplicably cave in, there’s no way this will happen.  A more plausible scenario is that McCain attempts to put through judges the base approves of, and he is brutally rebuffed by the Democrats.  Then he gives in and nominates someone like Harriet Miers.  Yikes.  Of course this all assumes McCain beats Barack Obama.  Is the New York Times worried about their golden boy’s chances in November?  Say it ain’t so guys.

Some of the Court’s rulings were questionable, and the assessment of their overall record this year as “muddled” is a fair way of describing it.  Even so, I shouldn’t be surprised that the New York Times wants to be on the record supporting the Court’s decision denying the death penalty to the child rapist.  The ruling was misguided to say the least.  If we are going to have the death penalty as a punishment for crime, not too many crimes are worse than child rape.  The child will be scarred for life.  I’m not sure that life in prison is a sufficient punishment for what the child went through at the hands of this monster. Then there’s the more well-known decision to give habeas corpus rights to Guantanamo detainees who — may I remind everyone — are not American citizens.  It’s a bad idea to give foreigners access to American courts, and I still haven’t heard a great explanation of why Constitutional rights and protections can be given to non-citizens.  At least the New York Times is consistent in their worldview and we know what to expect from the majority of their columnists and their op-eds.

Those of us on the right always point to stuff like this as a example of how out of touch the mainstream media is (and the New York Times usually provides most of the ammunition for these critiques).  If we spent half as much time focusing on what we can do to fix what the Republican politicians have broken, we might have more of a reason for confidence going into November.  As it stands now, we have an uphill climb ahead of us.

Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

bad idea

Dick Morris gets too much attention for his views on politics in general and  the ’08 race in particular.  He occasionally gets the analysis right, but this time I think he’s giving McCain bad advice on VP choices.  His whole premise is that McCain needs a WOW choice, someone who will excite voters into giving his candidacy a second look.  So far he’s making sense.   Then he suggests three choices:  Condi Rice, Colin Powell, and Joe Lieberman.  Sorry, I’m not feeling the excitement here.  Condi Rice and Colin Powell would be minority candidates with long resumes, and would add diversity to the ticket, but they are also tied to previous administrations and the war in Iraq.  McCain needs to make a clean break from the Bush administration, and picking Condi Rice or Colin Powell would not accomplish this objective.

Then there’s the Democrats’ favorite non-Democrat Joe Lieberman.   Does Morris really think that independents and moderates will flock to McCain’s side because he picks Joe Lieberman?  Joe Lieberman is not even all that popular in his own party.  I can’t see him adding much of value to a McCain ticket.  Even though Lieberman is reasonably popular with conservatives solely because of his support of the war in Iraq,  he is even more moderate than McCain on social issues, and this pick wouldn’t help McCain hold on to the conservatives who have resigned themselves to our Republican nominee.

McCain should keep looking and expand his Republican prospects beyond Pawlenty, Crist,  Ridge, Portman and some of the other no-names on his list.  Romney’s not the guy, and I can’t see how McCain picks him after their heated primary battle and Romney’s lack of credibility with voters.  (Before I get too much flack over this comment, let me just say that this is the way I think the public in general sees Romney.  It’s not my personal view of the man, and I would be perfectly happy with him as the Republican nominee for President or VP.  Just not in 2008.)

5 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals, Republicans

silly democrats

Let me get this straight — John McCain’s military service doesn’t qualify him to be commander in chief, but John Kerry’s does?  That’s the unusual logic employed by Obama supporter, failed presidential candidate, and retired military guy General Wesley Clark.   Surely General Clark remembers his glowing comments about Senator Kerry and his war record, and let’s be absolutely clear about this — Kerry ran on that record until he was derailed by the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth.  The Democrats seem conflicted about whether military service matters to presidential candidates.  Clinton = No.   Kerry=Yes.  McCain = Absolutely not.  Curious how military service only adds to your qualifications for commander-in-chief if you are a Democrat.

That’s ok though.  This is a debate I’m comfortable having with the Democrats all day long.  While it’s true that having military service doesn’t automatically qualify you to be President of the United States, McCain’s long record of public service, including serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee,  speaks to much more experience than Senator Obama has.   So Senator Obama’s surrogates like Clark want to question McCain’s experience. Ha.  Go ahead.    Do you really want to compare Obama and McCain on overall experience?  Good luck.