The Politics of Amnesty

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=20888

by Robert B. Bluey
Posted: 05/29/2007

The amnesty deal negotiated by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and the White House has Karl Rove’s fingerprints all over it. Plain and simple, it’s bad public policy being used to advance a political agenda.

We’ve seen this happen before, most notably in 2003 when 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, conservative critics were told, would guarantee Republicans the majority for decades.

Three years later, the GOP was knocked out of power in Congress, and if the party keeps heading down the same path, it’s destined to lose the White House in 2008.

You’d think Republicans would have learned their lesson when voters sent them packing last Election Day. But as the immigration debate clearly demonstrates, the White House is once again intent on vastly expanding government to achieve a political goal.

What’s remarkable is that attacks on conservatives as “restrictionistsâ€