Recently Richard Gephardt did exactly what I predicted he'd do a year ago—he formally introduced legislation calling and raising Bush's bid to give amnesty to just Mexican illegal aliens. The House Minority Leader wants to extend amnesty to illegals of all nations.
Gephardt's absolutely predictable ploy has led the Wall Street Journal editorial board to lament (in "The GOP's Immigration Fumble: Gephardt Steals an Issue"),
"… if Mr. Gephardt is successful the Democrats will have politically outmaneuvered the GOP on an issue that could hurt Republicans in November."
Indeed.
As you'll recall, last summer, in the hopes of attracting the absolutely crucial Mexican-American vote (which in 2000 constituted an enormous 1.1% of all total votes cast in the 48 states other than the already locked-up states of California and Texas), Bush offered amnesty to millions of Mexican illegal aliens.
As I wrote a year ago,
"In the Uncle Remus version of the story, Br'er Fox and Br'er Bush would be implored by poor old Br'er Daschle and Br'er Gephardt to "Please don't throw us in the amnesty patch! No, not the amnesty patch!"
The only argument in favor of discriminating against non-Mexican illegals in granting amnesty was: "Support the Bush Plan—It's Only Half as Disastrous as the Counter Offer the Democrats' Are Sure to Make! "
This was a completely foreseeable political debacle for Bush-Rove and the WSJ. Of course, the WSJ can't figure out any response to that charge (there is none). So in their editorial they just go off on a red herring tangent about 245(i).
WSJ editorials are written by smart people who like to win arguments. On a personal level, they must be getting tired of making themselves into laughingstocks by trying to come up with reasons defending their traditional "There shall be open borders" dogma. It must be personally humiliating to them to constantly get thrashed in argument by the likes of little old VDARE.com.
You folks at the WSJ—there's an easy solution for your frustration. Just stop trying to defend the indefensible.
The good news for the GOP is that Gephardt's bill gives them a surefire election-winning strategy for November. We'll put it in caps to help them get the message:
PUBLICLY DUMP BUSH'S AMNESTY PLAN AND MAKE ATTACKS ON GEPHARDT'S ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT AMNESTY PLAN INTO THE CENTRAL ISSUE OF THE MID-TERM ELECTIONS.
Is that clear?
Of course, the GOP would no doubt prefer to lose the House genteelly than to do anything that the public likes but that the respectable opinion (which includes the Wall Street Journal Edit Pagers) would tsk-tsk over.
[Steve Sailer [email him] is founder of the Human Biodiversity Institute and movie critic for The American Conservative. His website www.iSteve.blogspot.com features his daily blog.]
August 05, 2002
