Jun 13 2007
Michelle Proves My Point
Michelle Malkin has made my point about the idiocy of saying all we need to do is enforce our laws and we are good. She has a long list of cases where the laws fell down and failed. Not because law enforcement was not trying (duh – that is why these cases were in court) but because the laws on the books are impotent and full of holes. Malkin likes to claim those we see this and realize the immigration bill will close a lot of those holes so when these cases go to court the government wins more are either (1) Liars or (b) Clueless.
Whatever Michelle. The fact is she provides a strong case why the status quo is a failure not because of a lack of effort or money or fences. It is a failure because it is FUBAR’d. While imperfect, the immigration bill fixes a lot of these holes. It includes “amnesty” as well for the long term illegals here now. But instead of fixing these holes and stopping this madness and taking the criminals off the streets and showing them the door at our border, Malkin continues to kid herself that we should not pass the bill.
This illogical position is rapidly becoming untenable and will fail. Just as it fails the laugh test. Our laws are broken so heaven forbid we do something to fix them! It is Malkin, Tancredo and Lou Dobbs who are fighting to keep this mess. Two thirds are ready to work the problem and get beyond this pretzel logic infecting the far right of the GOP.
BTW, the rift on the right is real and some are waking up. DJ Drummond addresses the issue well. I feel I was in the camp that tried to warn those who were going too far that they should slow down. I tried it respectfully. I have now joined a new camp – I am do not want to bury the hatchet. Too many trips down the purity road. Too many times hard core emotions torpedoed the conservative coalition, taking aim out fellow cons. Too many willing to go the scortched earth path to win. I was once in the let’s try to work this out camp. Now I am in the ‘why would I want to ally with these people’ camp. I am not being vindictive. I have been utterly repulsed. To much vitriol, too much hate, to much of a lot of bad things I don’t need to name anymore. That is why I say the coalition is over. I tend to be one of the last rats to jump a sinking ship. I am an optimist at heart.
But there comes a point to close the chapter and move on. Without some kind of mea culpa from the flame throwers on the right and a commitment to not repeat what has been repeated many times now since Harriet Miers had her name dragged through the mud – that chapter seems better closed. Everytime I peak at the comments at Free Republic and Lucianne and LGF I see reasons to shut the door again – not walk back in. At some point you stop seeing the good and you see all the bad and it becomes too much, it overpowers the good.
AJ
In fairness, she presents a good case that the law IMPLEMENTATION by the Immigration Courts and the appeal court are part of the problem.
Guess what.
They are not even addressed by this bill except to add personnel.
There is no structural change to the court end of the system and all the alternative appeal routes.
This still be an issue which continues to haunt us.
AJ, I wish you would reconsider.
I understand completely where you are coming from. Like you I spent much time warning people to stop the madness. Like you perhaps the comments here irratate me at times because many posters feeling sare hurt becaus some have defended themselves slighty.
When I posted on Free Republic and was called horrible names and always had people attempted to ban me where were they or people like them? Very few stood up and said don’t treat a fellow conservative or Republican that way. In my Catholic Tradition during mass we pray for God to forgive us of the thing we have done and LEFT UNDONE. That includes silence when people should have spoken up. Very few did.
However, we have no choice to come back together. Also in the end is this really a huge part of the party? I mean no one in my memory elected Sean Hanity, Michelle Malkin, Hugh and assorted others major players in the conservative Coalition. Are we not in the end talking about a part of the movement that just repeats back the same old song and dance to each other?
One thing to think about AJ is that LA TImes Poll. despite a negative pr campaign the numbers have held. That is because for many that are even actively involved much of this is background noise.
If we split we become insignificant. That is the fact.
JH
Louisiana
Merlin,
She makes a good case it is NOT Bush’s fault or Congress’s fault at this moment. She makes a great case WHY we need the new bill to tighten things up.
Yes, there are fixes in the bill. Not ALL fixes. Come back after this bill and add some more. No one is stopping anyone from coming back for round two.
Let it pass – or own the morasse
AJ
I have no love for how the Miers issue was handled , but do you honestly believe that she would have been as good a choice for a court seat as John Roberts??????
You are arguing process over product there and way on the wrong end of the stick.
Yeah, every time I see the comment “just enforce the law,” I keep wanting to ask the commenter why he thinks the law isn’t being enforced. You’d think the meme going around was that President Bush told the USCIS and the Border Patrol to just procrastinate or something, and all that was required was to give the right person a kick in the pants and that would make everything all better.
If this problem were easy to solve, it would have been solved decades ago.
How she would be as USSC justice is not relevant to the problem of the far right. And it is not an excuse for poor behavior. The far right assumes it can do what it takes to win – no matter how vulgar. After repelling everyone they cannot understand what happened.
AJ
The methods may have been wrong by and extreme few, but there was still a wide rejection even by those who handled it in a civil manner.
Miers made as much sense as a football team passing up their first round draft pick to get the highest rated quaterback out of the field and instead taking the owner of the team’s nephew.
The important issue was getting a solid conservative constructionist judge on the court and there were a number of much better qualified choices than Miers could even hope to present.
Merlin,
There was no wide denouncements. They patted themselves on the back and have done more of the same ever since.
Show me the apology to Miers by those who made up stuff about her (especially at NRO and her nemesis Frum).
You are doing it again. The ends justified the means.
Not anymore.
Well I come home from work and we are still having the same argument.
I think that Michelle can play this little game all she wants, after all the only thing she is responsible for is indoctrinating other people to knee jerk think and believe as she does. It is like that with all these people. They have their fan clubs who go their sites and believe whatever crazy stuff they come up with. Oh yeah, Senator Kyl is a traitor, but you can trust Michelle. You betcha. It is not as if she has her own agenda or anything.
It is obvious that the laws are not adequate as they stand. So far Michelle’s contribution to the subject has been to make me wonder if the Democrats can really be that much worse than the Republicans if Michelle is an example of what a conservative intellectual sounds like.
People like biglsufan make me think that maybe there is something worth saving. There are good people in the conservative movement. They are not all a bunch of ideologues.
I know I have written a lot of these other people like Michelle off and I will not be changing my mind about them. If someone else wants to waste their time in mindless obedience to the talking heads like Michelle and Hugh, they can. I think they have their own plans for the party and immigration is just a means to an end.
And this annoying habit they of assuming they are experts on the subject really pisses me off. Michelle knows as much about immigration as she does port terminals. The same can be said for a lot of bloggers and pundits out there. They don’t really know what they are talking about.
Present company excluded of course. At least I do not pretend to know it all.
Merlin:
It was not their place to reject the nominee. I remember hearing all these self righteous sanctimonious people drone on about how Bush had a right to his nominee, right up until he chose someone they did not like. And then forget all that rhetoric, they just had to make asses of themselves.
I remember Ann Coulter doing her elitist little “In Defense of the Ivy League” thing in which she came right out and said that a mere mortal who went to a {shudder} state university was not top drawer enough. David Frum said that evern if Miers made all the right decisions she would still not be good enough, she could never be good enough…there were charges of char woman, people making fun of her age, her eye makeup, her hair, calling her an old maid, a spinster. It was mean and personal and tacky as hell.
AJ
All who followed the issue had a short list of judges and the only issue was which one to pick.
Miers wasn’t even on the radar.
The rejection was wide and deep and mostly civil.
It was simply a matter of choosing the best we could put forward.
For every loud over the top voice, there were 5 or 6 reasoned ones.
There was even a point of speculation that GWB was gonna try to substitute Gonzales for Meirs.
Yes there was much bad behavior, but strictly on the merits Meirs should have never even come up to cause the issue to begin with.
A.J., the place we differ is that I still have hope the GOP will regroup and become a whole and effective party. Since you are not an affiliated Republican, the jump is not quite as distressing for you. Me, I’m still clinging to my punctured life raft and waving my ragged little GOP flag! However, if we don’t get it together, I think your vision of “new coalitions” is a perfectly viable alternative and helps me face the future, come what may.
Thanks for nailing Malkin. Few people irritate and exhaust me as much as her omniscient self. I used to respect her opinion once upon a time. But she’s blown all credibility with her ugly, relentless fixation on alien invaders. (Cue the scary music.) But LSU is quite correct… who the heck is she? She doesn’t persuade me in the least… matter of fact she’s possibly the most effective deterrent to her own causes. Terrye is also correct — Malkin, Hewitt, Hannity et al. are not experts in much besides self-promotion and filling up airwaves with hysterical propaganda. I left behind their noise in the echo chamber with all the other un-elected, un-appointed demagogues.
DJ Drummond’s piece is pretty darn good. I hope many others are beginning to wake up as well. Every add’l appraisal helps… lots of people might never comment at all, but they read, think it over, and eventually may be persuaded that we need to correct course — in a hurry.
Add to that the fact that Bush did get them two conservative nominees and that bought about 5 minutes of good behavior and then they were at it again. bitch bitch bitch.
Merlin:
Are you an expert on Supreme Court Justices? If the self anointed experts of the world of pundits had not informed you that Miers was not acceptable, would you have known that?
I read David McCullough’s bio on Truman and he reminds me of Bush in some ways. He said that one would think columnists held a cabinet position since they think they run the country.
The internet has given these people more opportunities to promote themselves and their ideas, but when it comes to nominating Supreme Court Justices, that duty resides with the President of the United States. Not some loud mouth pundit.
Sally Vee:
When I think of GOP I tend to think of people like my mother in law. I am one of those rare women who actually liked her mother in law. She was a true blue Republican and she was one of those people who would never have gone out of her way to insult anyone or force her views on people.
Terrye
An expert no.
But it doesn’t seem to be too far a stretch that a sitting federal judge with a clear case history background adjudged by fellow jurists and members of the legal community would be a much well documented and worthy pick for such a position than someone with no judicial experience.
Otherwise, would you be comfortable with the local winner of your neighborhood paint ball competition being appointed a Joint Chief of Staff over all the military?
Ms Meirs had no support , no base in fact and no competence for the position.
All those facts would draw me to the same conclusion regardless of pundit positions, no matter how many spouted them.
Am I an expert. Nope not by a long shot. But I do recognize the abilities of independent analysis just on the merits (not the pundits) of the actual qualifications of judicial nominees.
Lighten up AJ. You’ve made it clear that you’d like the bill to be better and while you may disagree with their methods the critics are doing just that – making the bill better. Sure certain ones sound extreme at various points on various subjects, but lumping them all together as being one and the same is not fair, they’re not the same.
You’ve been every bit as passionate in the past on any number of issues as some of the bill’s critics are now and I don’t remember any of them calling you names or refusing to caucus with you when your strong view was in the vocal minority.
So pop a cold one and relax. This immigration bill is getting better the more we look at the details and the more we debate the merits. If the bill had made it through the Senate in regular order, the Repub team probably wouldn’t be at each other’s throats – just like the Dems want. So why give the enemy the satisfaction? Don’t settle so fast … Let’s make the bill better and better yet…WORKABLE.
Terrye
Do you honestly believe Ms Meirs was as qualified for the position as John Roberts, if so why?
Crazy,
I am lightening up. I too am fighting for the best solution. Let’s get it passed and add more later!
Merlin,
You are doing it again. You are ignoring the bile. This is why it get’s ugly. You tolerate way too much.