Senate Cabal Sweet Talking for Amnesty Say: Of Course, I'll Respect You In the Morning
President Bush incorrectly gauged the tenor of the average citizen when he told them that if they didn't buy his amnesty plan they just didn't want what was good for the country. Even those in his own party felt bullied and insulted by his remarks.
Now, President Bush has come back as an ardent swain to court public opinion, but this time saying that he is promising something that he never had before: real border security. Of course, he has promised something before. In the last Congress, a bill calling for about 700 miles of fencing passed, and people thought a fence would be built. The president signed the bill. As of today, several months later, only about eleven miles have been built and those who survey the border say there is no building activity going on.
The amnesty bill the president is pushing now has some cute language in it. When it mentions the fence it says it will be built “subject to the availability of funds”. Since funds may be withheld, this is a giant loophole. We the People are getting smarter about reading the bills and finding the loopholes that are always present. We the People want the fence to be built first, and when it is finally a deterrent to the thousands who sneak in daily, then we’ll talk about amnesty.
However, if this bill is passed, the minute the president signs it, everybody who sneaked into the country will be made legal. Presto, changeo. Why worry about an old fence when you have what you really want?
The president now says that the “status quo is unacceptable”. Funny, that is what over seventy percent of the American public has been telling him for over six years.
But, the president says that, even if he has ignored his duty, as a sworn servant of the people, to stop an invasion and maintain our sovereignty, after six years he’s really, really going to do it. That’s reassuring, right? And, if we give him his amnesty bill,
“Of course I’ll respect you in the morning.”
The way the president has treated his own party could be compared to the battered wife syndrome. Seems like he feels they are married to him and he can treat them any way he likes. Where are they going to go? And, after he gets through insulting his base, he comes back and makes nice, because he needs some of them to get his amnesty bill through. First he bullies, then cajoles.
The latest “point man” on the amnesty bill that the president, and most Democrats, are trying to resurrect is Senator Trent Lott. Lott hasn’t been treated real well by his party. When he toasted an aging politician, Strom Thurmond, at a 100th birthday party for the old senator, he said if Thurmond had won the presidency the country would have been better off. This sent the Democrats into a tizzy, with Al Gore claiming it was probably a racist remark. Thurmond was from the old South and voted along with most others in his time. Democrats never admit that one of their own, Senator Robert Byrd, had been a recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan, but has never been denied a leadership role in the Democrat party. The Republicans, including the president, left Lott to twist in the wind.
Now, Lott is out front, hailing the amnesty as the only solution to the millions of illegal aliens who have broken our laws. Lott is all for the “compromise” legislation. However, the only ones doing the compromising will be the average American voters who sent the message that they don’t want this bill, no way, no how, no matter what they call it.
When Senator Kyl flip-flopped on the amnesty bill, after he had promised to vote against amnesty, the speculation was that he had been assured a judgeship.
Edward Tuffly II, President, Local 2544 of the National Border Patrol Council, said in a letter to Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ):
“Local 2544, now representing about 2600 Border Patrol agents in Arizona, endorsed your Senate bid last year with the CLEAR understanding that you would not support amnesty for illegal aliens. We feel we have been sold out”.
Did Kyl tell his supporters that:
“Of course I’ll respect you in the morning”.
Besides being welcomed back into the powerful inner circle, what was Lott offered?
To those pesky citizens who are taking part in representative government, Lott
has this to say:
“Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem.”
Since talk radio is the antidote to the mainstream media, one wonders just what Lott meant by “deal with that problem”. Is he suggesting silencing this voice with something like the so-called “fairness doctrine” that would severely curtail the freedom of those broadcasting opinions? Oddly enough, the fairness doctrine never applies to the mainstream media. Or, is Lott suggesting something even stronger? The threat is left out there, ugly and menacing to those who value freedom of speech.
The poster boys for the bill keep changing. Senators Specter, McCain, McConnell, Salazar, Graham, Kyl, and the ever present Kennedy have all been on board. The other constant player is the president, himself. McCain saw his poll numbers going down and wisely withdrew his name from the morphing amnesty bill. The poll numbers for the president are in the twenties now, with Congress going even lower. Still, they press on with this unpopular amnesty.
Prostitutes always get their money up front. How many politicians have taken up the practice?
That leaves the curious to wonder just who is pushing so hard for amnesty. Some of the special interest groups have been in the closed door meetings where this giveaway legislation was hatched. They are reported to be big business, represented by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Hispanic activist groups such as La Raza, and the A.C.L.U., among others. Who was representing We the People in these secret meetings? Also, the usual committee hearings were bypassed, no doubt because this legislation had to be presented without its details leaking out.
So, now the carrot to be offered is border security of some kind. It took over six months to get eleven miles of fence built, so this is not something to get excited about. The president could, with a stroke of the pen, send adequate National Guard troops to the border to help out the beleaguered Border Patrol agents, who are now facing the drug cartels. They are being shot at as the cartels jockey for position in the drug corridors that run through our open border.
We have had our troops in South Korea and South Vietnam and Germany for many years now. In fact, a Department of Defense publication, “Active Duty Military Personnel Strengths by Regional Area and Country”, says that in 2004 we had troops stationed in 135 countries, all the way from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. This represents about 70% of the countries of the world. Still, the Commander-in-Chief can’t spare a few thousand to protect our own borders.
So, when we hear the siren song of amnesty from its proponents, accompanied by promises that have never been kept before, we are rightly suspicious that after the pushers of this bill get what they want, the courting will be over, even if they now promise:
Barbara regularly writes for CapitolHillCoffeeHouse. She also appears in California Chronicle, Border Patrol, and Citizens Caucus. Her primary interest is illegal immigration, but she writes about other subjects as well.
Barbara lives in a large city on the West Coast. Her loyalties are with God, family, country, heritage and borders.
She enjoys music, painting, poetry and song writing.