The President’s speech tonight was a major disappointment to me. I have posted the full text of his remarks here, but in this post, I’ll simply excerpt a few of the most blatant pieces of bullshit.
But first, before the bad and the ugly, the few pieces of good:
A pledge to involve 6,000 National Guard troops. I’d be much, much happier with regular Army (and controlling our borders would NOT conflict with posse comitatus restrictions in any universe except the ACLU’s warped “reality-based” fantasy).
A pledge to end “catch and release” for illegal aliens. (We’ll see if this is a real pledge as things unfold.)
The Bad?
“…we need to hold employers to account for the workers they hire.” Sounds good? Yeh, but then he goes into a spiel about how haaaaard it is for the poor widdle employers to screen illegals. Bullshit. He goes all around the barn inventing a need for hi-tech biometric IDs. Bullshit. All that’s needed is to plainly and simply jail people who employ illegals and confiscate their businesses. Bob’s your uncle. No more jobs for illegals. (Or damned few.)
Instead, Bush flogs the issue… all around the bush and excuses the vast jobs market in illegals.
Bullshit.
“A tamper-proof card would help us enforce the law and leave employers with no excuse for violating it,” the President said. What he said a few sentences earlier, plainly, and reiterates here elliptically, is that employers now have a ready-made excuse, acceptable to the Administration, for violating the law. Poor widdle co-conspirators with alien invaders!
“… by making it harder for illegal immigrants to find work [with hi-tech, but still fakeable ID cards–ed] in our country, we would discourage people from crossing the border illegally in the first place.
Gee, when simply ENFORCING THE LAWS AS THEY NOW STAND would do the same thing, and would have started emptying our borders of illegals long ago, he wants to shut down jobs for illegals the hard way. He says. Except…
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.
But, but I thought he said that enforcing the laws against hiring illegals would shut down their job market? Gee, wouldn’t that dry up their reasons for being here? Doesn’t he even listen to himself? No, because while arguing that a guest worker program is not amnesty (and ignoring what he himself said about drying up the job market for illegals), he describes… an amnesty program. Sure, he said it’s not amnesty, by redefining very narrowly what amnesty is, but what’s the “harsh penalty” he outlines for illegals in his proposed guest worker program? Let’s see… they get to stay and work, they get to apply for citizenship and, oh, he says they have to get to the back of the line in getting their citizenship approved! Wow! While millions of people around the world have to wait in line just to enter the country, these people who cut in line to begin with get to stay! What penalty do they pay? uhm, zippo, zilch, nada, zero-with-the-rim-kicked-off. If they had to LEAVE and THEN REALLY, genuinely, honestly “get in the back of the line” then they’d be paying a small penalty for being line-jumpers.
As it is, the President’s proposal is a lie. No penalties of any substance. They are getting amnesty, no matter what disingenuous label he slaps on it.
The Ugly
The United States is not going to militarize the southern border. Mexico is our neighbor, and our friend. We will continue to work cooperatively to improve security on both sides of the border, to confront common problems like drug trafficking and crime, and to reduce illegal immigration.
“…continue to work cooperatively…” with Mexico? Complete and absolute and utter bullshit. Violation of our borders as an institutionalized policy of the Mexican authorities is an established fact. Anyone who can type in a google search can refute this piece of the President’s bullshit. Unacceptable, Mr. President. Completely unacceptable. Until you can start being truthful about the Mexican authorities’ willful participation in aiding illegal immigration, you have not yet begun to be honest about border security.
*sigh*
The Prsident concluded his remarks with two highly offensive comments:
America needs to conduct this debate on immigration in a reasoned and respectful tone.
Mr. President, when you engage in flat-out lies, deception and misdirection, YOU are not being reasonable or respectful. You are being insulting. And although I have defended you and your policies in the past, until and unless you apologize for your deceptions on this issue and your insulting remarks, I will no longer consider you within the circle of those to whom I need deal with respectfully.
Consider the damnable deception of your closing argument, sir:
I know many of you listening tonight have a parent or a grandparent who came here from another country with dreams of a better life. You know what freedom meant to them, and you know that America is a more hopeful country because of their hard work and sacrifice. As President, I have had the opportunity to meet people of many backgrounds, and hear what America means to them. On a visit to Bethesda Naval Hospital, Laura and I met a wounded Marine named Guadalupe Denogean. Master Gunnery Sergeant Denogean came to the United States from Mexico when he was a boy. He spent his summers picking crops with his family, and then he volunteered for the United States Marine Corps as soon as he was able…
Thank you, Mr. President, for metaphorically showing us how you really think our country’s flag should be flown:
I too know many immigrants. I too know family who are the progeny of immigrants. Legal immigrants. When you lump them all into the same pot, sir, you create an error of construction. You know what you are doing. You are being deliberately deceptive, conflating arguments for accepting LEGAL immigrants, those who stood their turn in line, learned English, earned citizenship and became productive members of society LEGALLY, with line-jumpers who refuse to assimilate, to learn English and earn citizenship, truly become Americans.
That deliberate blurring of a very real line is disgusting and offensive, and it alone proves, Mr. President, that you know you are betraying the real immigrants, the one who are willing to genuinely pay the price to enter legally and truly become Americans.
Either that or the Bushitler people were right all along and you really are stupid.
Which one is it?
Update: Big Dog nails the speech with trenchant observations including this one:
I have no problem with a guest worker program. I just think the guest workers should be people who are not already here ILLEGALLY. We can get people who did not break the law and let them be guests. A man who breaks into your house would not be treated as a guest so why treat a person who broke into our country as one.
Woof!
And I missed the the “Live Blogging/Drinking Party” at Stop the ACLU, but the comments are certainly worth swinging by for.
