Bush's 'callous disregard'

By Dimitri Vassilaros
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, January 22, 2007


Congressman Dana Rohrabacher makes the Dixie Chicks sound like bosom buddies of President George W. Bush.
Politics being politics, it's easy to dismiss the antipathy liberals have for Mr. Bush. But Bush has lost the support -- and even the respect -- of Mr. Rohrabacher. The California Republican is serving his ninth term and has a lifetime score of 95 from the American Conservative Union. He also has had it with a commander in chief who prefers surrender to being the defender of America's defenseless border with Mexico.

Rohrabacher said the minute two unjustly convicted men who had been Border Patrol agents turned themselves in to start their sentences last week was when he decided he'd no longer hold back any honest comment anymore.

"The nastiness in his personality had been in check until now," he says about President Bush. "Exposing it to the public is pretty disgusting. He has a callous disregard for those who place their lives on the line for us."

He's referring to the surreal plight of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean. They were Border Patrol agents until being convicted in federal court for essentially doing their jobs. Each faces more than a decade in prison. Their own government granted immunity in exchange for testimony to a Mexican drug runner who had a van with more than 700 pounds of marijuana when they confronted him in America. One agent shot him in the butt.

Rohrabacher says that for months he's been trying to speak to Bush or a senior adviser but only underlings "way down on the totem pole" returned his calls.

And when they do, they tell him the two received a fair trial and offer Rohrabacher statements by the U.S. attorney general and the federal prosecutor saying so.

"No one in the White House is a firm believer of defending America's borders," he says. "It's a monstrous betrayal, as it has been for the last six years. (Bush) has a hidden agenda that is not accepted by the people. He is trying to implement an open-border policy without debate. We will find out in the future that part of his game plan was to make it a fait accompli."

The recent presidential pardons of convicted drug dealers -- but not of Ramos and Compean -- indicate something is totally wrong at the White House, he says.

Rohrabacher says cruelty and arrogance are part of Bush's personality because just one call to the judge would have allowed the two to remain free pending their appeals. "In the meantime, they will spend (at least) a couple of years in jail," he says.

President Bush told KFOX-TV on Thursday that he might pardon them. The self-proclaimed compassionate conservative told the station, "There's a process for pardons. It's got to work its way through a system here in the government. I just want people to take a sober look at the case. People need to take a tough look at the facts, the evidence a jury looked at, as well as (the) judge. And I will do the same thing."

Someone a bit less callous and nasty already would have done that to spare these men and their families the anguish. How long did it take to grant immunity to the illegal who was shot?

Perhaps the president is hesitant to pardon for fear of offending that Mexican drug dealer and untold others who would rather be confronted in America by anyone other than Ramos or Compean.


Dimitri Vassilaros is a Trib editorial page columnist. His column appears Sundays, Mondays and Fridays. Call him at 412-380-5637. E-mail him at dvassilaros@tribweb.com.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsbu ... 89416.html