May 31, 2007

White House Leaning Hard on Immigration

The White House Journal, (aka the Wall Street Journal,) is still in a full-court press trying to get the American people to swallow the Amnesty Bill. Today they host an op/ed by Jeb Bush and Ken Mehlman (subsription only):

Both of us have spent much of our professional lives working to help build the Republican Party. We believe this legislation will be good for the GOP. Hispanic Americans are natural Republicans.
Of course they are...so long as Republican politicians do everything they want. God forbid the Republican Party do anything that might even be perceived by Hispanics as insensitive. God forbid the Republicans would actually endorse the idea of enforcing the law, or the idea of equal treatment under the law, or a reform bill that actually punishes people who fail to comply even with its vastly-liberalized provisions. Standing firm for traditional Republican principles would, you see, risk alienating all these natural Republicans.

Rob Bluey is right on the money:

Does that argument sound familiar? The White House told conservatives the same thing in 2003 when Karl Rove and President Bush strong-armed Republicans in Congress into supporting the largest entitlement program since the days of LBJ’s Great Society. The Medicare prescription drug bill, we were told, would guarantee Republicans the majority for decades. Three years later, the GOP was knocked out of power in Congress.
UPDATED: Bryan's take, after watching what's going on in the Arizona GOP:
They’re taking a hammer to that base by smearing it as a bunch of bigots and rubes, and the base is going to fracture and split as a result. It’s a recipe for disaster in Arizona, and it’s a recipe for disaster nationally.
Amen to that.

By Ragnar Danneskjold, Typical Bitter Gun-Clinger at 12:02 PM | |