BCT Editorial – 12/19/04

This page was last updated on December 19, 2004.

A house divided; Editorial; Beaver County Times; December 19, 2004.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“Immigration could very well show Americans whether President Bush puts principles ahead of politics.

“Bush wants to reform the way in which our nation deals with immigration. To do so, though, he must seek and receive significant support from Democrats because his party is deeply divided on this issue.

“In reaching out to Democrats, the president would be running directly into House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s policy of only bringing legislation to the floor of that chamber if it has the support of ‘the majority of the majority’ of the GOP delegation.

“As a columnist for The Economist points out, that could be tough to do because the majority of House Republicans are hardliners on immigration. They want more restrictions on immigration and tougher treatment of illegals.”

[RWC] “Tougher treatment of illegals?” Most conservatives merely want our current immigration laws enforced. To the best of my knowledge, there are no proposals to reduce legal immigration. I believe the “restrictions on immigration” the editorial mentions are simply enforcing existing laws and protecting our borders.

“President Bush is not in that camp, as he showed last January when he offered a plan to grant temporary-worker status to millions of ‘undocumented aliens’ and make it easier to get citizenship. To do that, he must put together a group of Democratic [sic] and Republican liberalizers.

“Doing nothing is not a realistic alternative.

“As the columnist points out, the present system is broken and must be fixed. For that reason, Bush must push ahead on this issue.

“‘The current immigration system is about as badly broken as can be, with 8 million immigrants residing in the United States illegally and another 1 million illegals arriving every year,’ the columnist wrote. ‘But George Bush has no chance of fixing it unless he is willing to get into a fight with his own rank and file.’

[RWC] I’m not an insider, but I think describing discussions between President Bush and Republicans in Congress on this subject as a “fight” may be strong. There’s no question President Bush appears to lean in the direction of policies that encourage illegal immigration, but I believe President Bush and Congress can work out a compromise that makes sense.

“Whether Bush picks this fight with his own party or walks away from it will tell Americans which comes first for Bush - politics or principles. In his second term, we can only hope that it will be the latter instead of the former.”

[RWC] I’m not sure that’s a correct conclusion. President Bush has several tough initiatives on his agenda for the next four years. Rather than politics vs. principles, President Bush’s actions could be an indication of priority. That is, to accomplish the greatest number of goals may require conceding others. As much as I believe President Bush is a good president, no one has a monopoly on good ideas.