printBush’s immigration infarct was studded with his trademark non sequiturs:
We are a nation of immigrants; therefore we must uphold that “tradition,” he puled. And “to secure our border, we must create a temporary worker program.” In both assertions, the second proposition doesn’t follow from the first—even if America is indeed a nation of immigrants, it doesn’t follow that it has to remain so. Similarly, it is quite possible to seal the border without creating a guest worker program (with its attendant bureaucracy).
One of the many moral infelicities Bush has committed on the matter of immigration is to have decided that the longer an illegal alien has been in the U.S., and thus violated its laws, the shorter his road to citizenship. Another was to praise these plucky folks for heroically forging documents and lying to employers about their status in the country.
Sanctimonious admonitions were in no short supply—but were directed at … the American people. They were told to “conduct this debate on immigration in a reasoned and respectful tone.” “We must always remember,” said The Man Who Pulverized Iraq, “that real lives will be affected by our debates and decisions.”
Since Those Jobs The American People Aren’t Doing were also mentioned, I, in turn, wish to refer the POTUS to a report by researcher Edwin S. Rubenstein, according to which illegals make up only 13 percent of hotel industry workers, 11 percent of restaurant and food service workers, and 10 percent of construction workers.
Will the president pray tell who the other mystery workers are?