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Author: Jim Wrenn
Date:  June 4, 2007

Topic category:  Other/General

George Bush owes apology for defaming anti-illegal-immigration opponents of current Senate proposal and opponents owe America support for proposals to remedy its deficiencies.


Given the recent exposure of Caribbean involvement in the plot to explode jet-fuel lines and tanks for JFK Airport, all sides of the debate over what would be a proper "solution" to the problem of "illegal immigration" should take a deep breath and try to restore civility to the discourse. Bush needs to apologize for comments unfairly defaming his supporters who oppose the current Senate proposal and some of those supporters need to recognize that they overreacted to his comments in ways that exaggerated, and in some instances, mischaracterized, his intent.

President Bush owes an apology to anti-illegal-immigration opponents of the current Senate proposal for implicitly defaming their motives and for failing to rebuke his spokespersons implicitly attributing bigotry to their motives. No doubt, there are some opponents on the fringes of the right (as well on the left-side of labor) whose opposition flows from bigotry, but the way Bush expressed himself (and tolerated subordinates' expressions) in criticizing opponents wrongly served to perpetuate the false impression (promoted by leftists) that bigotry motivates most, if not virtually all, opponents on the right rather than only a tiny percentage on the fringes. This justifiably left many of his thus-far most ardent supporters extremely angry at having been implicitly equated with bigots rather than proponents of secure borders in the age of terrorism.

Not only did Bush's and his subordinates' actions prompt such expressions of angry outrage by many of his theretofore ardent supporters, but such actions also prompted a field-day for the Bush-hating, surrender-now crowd on the left and their sycophants in the traditionally dominant media (a.k.a. "MSM") competing with each other to:

(a) echo (and seek to amplify) sentiments expressed by some of Bush's erstwhile supporters accusing him of having "alienated" his "base" and/or "destroying" the Republican Party and

(b) implicitly, if not explicitly, characterize as "true" the "bigotry" characterizations inferred from Bush's and his subordinate's criticisms of his supporters' opposition to the Senate proposal..

For example, the Bush-hating/surrender-now crowd and their MSM sycophants took particular delight in echoing/amplifying Rush Limbaugh's criticism of Bush in the matter. However, Limbaugh, an ardent supporter of Bush on Operation Iraqi Freedom, has long expressed serious and substantive policy-oriented criticisms of Bush on a wide range of issues (e.g., "spending," new "entitlements" such as prescription-drug benefits, and other "conservative" issues in addition to Bush's long-known position on how to deal with illegal immigration). Similarly, most of "talk radio" (e.g., Laura Ingraham, Michael Smerconish, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill Bennett, Neil Boortz, Michael Medved, Michael Reagan and Mike Gallagher, to name a few) as well as the dominant pundits on the right side of the blogosphere (e.g., Michelle Malkin, Captain Ed, PowerLine's bloggers, Glenn Reynolds, Victor Davis Hanson, and Charles Johnson to name but a few) have long-expressed serious, substantive criticism of Bush on similar issues. But, because such long-standing examples of criticism of Bush "from the right" don't fit the MSM's "template" for falsely characterizing such pundits "on the right" as mere sycophants for Bush, the MSM gave little attention to such examples.

Although Bush's (and his subordinates') defamatory mischaracterizations of "opposition" to the Senate proposal indisputably provide grist for the MSM mill to grind-out "news" falsely characterizing opposition from "the right" to the Senate proposal as founded on bigotry (against "people of color"), many responses from "the right" excoriating Bush (and his subordinates) served to exacerbate the effects such MSM responses. How? By mischaracterizing Bush's (and his subordinates') criticism of bigots as though it were a criticism of them rather than by expressing agreement with his criticism of bigots as a way of contrasting bigoted opposition to the Senate proposal with their unbigoted, rational, reasonable, and common-sense opposition to it as mind-bogglingly complicated proposal that would substantively amount to little more than a "Simpson-Mazzoli Redux."

Although Limbaugh expressed unequivocal opposition to the substance of Bush's position on the Senate proposal, he was one of the few "on the right" to reject the interpretation of Bush's comments as having been intended to characterize most opponents (of the Senate proposal) "on the right" (in contrast to the tiny percentage on the far-right fringes) as "bigots." To Limbaugh's credit, he refused to succumb to the "Bush-is-calling-me-a-bigot" interpretation of Bush's criticism of opposition to the Senate proposal; rather, though strenuously disagreeing with Bush's policy, he credited Bush for sincerity in believing that border-enforcement plus a guest-worker program would make it easier, rather than more difficult, to detect and prevent what the "Three Amigos" video above illustrates-- i.e., terrorists and/or Chavez-inspired "reconquistas" from crossing the border (the latter of who claim they "didn't cross the border" and that instead, "the border crossed them").

Regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with the assertion that "illegal immigrants" arrived because they're willing to "do work American's won't do"º¹ (which anyone with a modicum of common sense knows to be at least partially true), the opponents of the Senate proposal are in reality most upset with politicians who seem to believe that the "real" job that "Americans don't want to do" is to enforce the border as satirically illustrated by the great Day By Day cartoonist, Chris Muir, who gave permission for his "border patrol" cartoon to be adapted to video by PoliSat.Com.

I agree in principle with those who say effective border control must come first as a foundation for a sensible, fair and enforceable "guest worker" program. I likewise agree with opponents of the Senate proposal as currently written which, among other things, irresponsibly contains provisions granting "z-visa" legality automatically within 24 hours after application unless a "background" check conducted within such 24 hours were to uncover grounds for denial. Instead, the bill should require as prerequisites for granting of a z-visa application: (a) that the applicant return to his country of origin to apply for same; (b) that the applicant prove continuous residence in his country of origin for not less than 60 days after initiation of such application, (c) that such applicant be required to tender an application fee in a sum sufficient to pay for a thorough background check during such 60-day period, and that (d) completion such background check without finding grounds for denial of the application be necessary for continuation of the application. Additionally, such program must also include elements requiring applicants to make satisfactory arrangements to pay penalties for any criminal fraud (such as fraudulent use of Social Security accounts/numbers/identification, for example). See, for example, suggestions I described in May, 2006.

No "perfect" solution can be devised, but whatever the solution, it must be one sufficiently rigorous to minimize it becoming a de-facto Simpson-Mizzoli Redux. Of course, no long-term solution can be effective unless it were to also be accompanied by effective political/economic pressure on Mexico to modernize its economic system with free-market principles and to crack-down on the pervasive corruption. That is the greatest challenge of all-- especially given the Paleo-Stalinist pressures (a la Hugo Chavez' growing influence among the disaffected poor in Latin America) likely to increase, rather than decrease, in Mexico.

--Jim Wrenn, Editor, WrennCom.Com.

º¹ Although I've often observed workers whose appearance matches that of what the Left loves to describe as Latino "people of color," I've never attempted to discern, and have never acquired reason to know, whether such workers were "legal" or "illegal" immigrants or citizens. In all but a very few instances, however, what I observed were people working very hard at very hard jobs. Having watched highway-construction crews for many decades before "illegal immigration" was even on the political radar screen, I have long been familiar with the familiar adage among motorist/taxpayers that such construction crews seem too often to involve two people watching for each one working. In contrast, in many instances in which I have observed so-called Latino "people of color" working on construction crews, the sight resembles the energetic work of ants rather than the "two watching for each one working" system so prevalent in highway construction.

The permanent Link to this installment (at WrennCom.Com) is HERE.

Jim Wrenn
Political Satire/Commentary at PoliSat.Com (Editor)


Biography - Jim Wrenn

Jim is a proud descendant of 18th Century criminal exiles from England who swam to the Outer Banks when the British ship taking them to a Georgia penal colony sank in a storm near Cape Hatteras. Having the prescience to prevent their descendants from becoming "TarHeels," they immediately migrated to Virginia, where, within just a few generations they worked their way up into poverty. Jim's grandfather was the first in the family tree to see the distant horizons, but his career was cut short by severe injuries he sustained when a cousin cut down the tree.

After a brief stint in the Amry (ours) following graduation from law school, he began his legal career in the state bureaucracy but was never able to break into the federal bureaucracy. Several years later, he entered the private practice of law and co-founded a small law publishing company. Later, finding the publishing of small laws unstimulating and finding his private practice too private to be lucrative, he began writing political satire/commentary. His greatest vice is taking himself too seriously.

He wrote the definitive books on the Clinton Era Error: the Clinton Liebrary Book (pre-October, 2000), which he later updated as the Clinton Liebrary Book 2001 Edition to include Election 2000, the post-election shennanigans, and related events through August, 2001. The 2001 edition is the only known literary source that conclusively shows why Bill Clinton pardoned Susan McDougal but not Webster Hubbel. It also presciently contains the Billary/Hillary Dueling Memoirs. At every opportunity he shamelessly promotes his books for orders on-line or by fax at www.ClintonLiebraryBook.Com. He's also the Librarian at the Clinton Liebrary (www.ClintonLiebrary.Com), which owns exclusive rights to Bill Clinton's most famous speech as well as Bill Clinton's comments after revelation of the identity of Deep Throat in 2005.

As an amateur scientist as well as a scientific amateur, he de-bunks the man-is-causing-Global "Warming" theory, and predicts that by the middle of the 21st Century (when he will be safely dead) physicists will discover the obvious flaws in Einstein's Theory of Relativity, which will lead to vastly-faster-than-light travel through polarization of gravity. As a constitutional-law scholar, he's trying to teach those who hold a static, zero-sum-game view of economic and social theories to understand that "property" is not a "thing" but rather is a human right.

Although he regularly teaches Continuing Legal Education courses to lawyers, he's too-often available through he Rubber Chicken Speakers Bureau to speak on politics, satire, etc., at luncheons, dinners, root canals, funerals, etc. His speaking fees are so outrageously high they border on criminal price-gouging, but as a free-market advocate, he defends his fees on the higher moral ground of charging whatever the traffic will bear. For more information (surely more than one would want or need), go to www.PoliSat.Com.


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