For Bush, fight over immigration bill is personal
President Bush sounded like he hoped to sever ties with the remaining 30 percent who like him when he went after critics in his party this week over opposition to his latest immigration plan.
"If you want to scare the American people, what you say is the bill's an amnesty bill," Bush said during a stop in Glynco, Ga. "That's empty political rhetoric, trying to frighten our citizens."
It was his harshest public backhand yet to the conservative bloggers, commentators, politicians and CNN anchor Lou Dobbs, all gassing about how the bill amounts to amnesty.
"People shouldn't fear our capacity to uphold our motto, E Pluribus Unum," Bush told McClatchy Newspapers.
The compromise Senate bill is drawing fire from Republicans and Democrats. Critics on the left don't like the high fees and penalties for illegal immigrations, or the shift away from reuniting families and toward valuing education and skills in deciding who gets in. Conservative critics are calling it amnesty because it includes provisions for those in the U.S. illegally to eventually become citizens.
Points to Texas' diversity
For Bush, the fight over immigration reform is a personal one — unlike Social Security or education reform, which were mostly political.
"I feel passionate about the issue. It's something I have felt strongly about ever since I was the governor of Texas," he said.
"Texas is a very diverse state, Houston is a very diverse city, and through that diversity, if you're open-minded, you get a great sense of how it invigorates the society," said Bush, a Houston resident in the 1960s and '70s.
Growing up in Texas, Bush said, "you recognize the decency and hard work and humanity of Hispanics. And the truth of the matter is a lot of this immigration debate is driven as a result of Latinos being in our country."
Or to be more specific, an unhappiness about Latinos being in the country. Bush, for the first time, is putting opponents on notice that he's going to call them out on their xenophobia if he needs to. In last year's failed effort at passing immigration reform, he never went that far.
"A lot of us in Texas were very aware of the immigration issue way before the rest of the country," Bush told McClatchy. Bush is working to keep the bill intact and moving forward.
His brother, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, joined former Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman in co-authoring an op-ed in Thursday's Wall Street Journal, calling on Republicans to support the bill.
In addition to arguing the merits, the two noted the political damage to the Republican Party after California in 1994 passed Proposition 187, a measure denying many public services to illegal immigrants.
"The GOP won the governor's mansion in the short term, but alienated the fastest-growing constituency in the state," they said.
With Congress out of town on recess, Bush had the microphone largely to himself on immigration. But he may not be getting traction because of the war in Iraq. The unpopular, long-running conflict has eroded public trust in the president and makes it harder for him to pass a domestic agenda. It also makes it easier for members of Congress to oppose him.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 52625.html
Bush is an insane maniac!
