I heard Congressman Tancredo on a radio show Sunday night. Tancredo thought the tide might finally be turning. The reason? Bush went too far this time. Some relatively liberal people oppose the amnesty. Many, many people are telling the GOP that they have had enough, and aren’t going to vote for Bush. Polls from ALL sources are overwhelmingly against amnesty.

In some reelection polls against a generic Democrat, Bush is only 50-50. Still, GWB seems oblivious to any opposition.

I don’t think it is a case of VDH being given a pass to speak on immigration because of his support of the war on terror. Rather, his credentials to speak are excellent, being a California central valley small grower who has long dealt with immigrants on a daily basis, employed them, taught them in school, and yes, occasionally been victimized by them. What he has written shows deep human sympathy for all the actors on both sides of the issue, as well as an understanding of the human foibles and shortcomings at work. Given this, it is very tough for anyone to deploy the usual smear tactics against his raising an uncomfortable issue. He seems to come out just where I have in other comments in this forum: no solution can be viable without first addressing the border issue. On the other hand, if that is done effectively, then we can afford to be somewhat generous with those now well established here who have shown themselves to be good potential citizens.

” … then we can afford to be somewhat generous with those now well established here who have shown themselves to be good potential citizens.”

One thing that pleased me about Hanson’s article was his suggestion of amnesty for people who been here and working for “twenty or thirty years.” But of course we already had an amnesty in 1986 for people who had been here before 1982. So Hanson’s is the kind of amnesty proposal I like.

A reader of VFR sends this query:

Aren’t we supposed to be a “nation of laws”? Then how can we reward lawbreakers as the proposed immigration plan would do? Aren’t we also supposed to be a nation dedicated to “equality of individuals under the law”? And yet do we not now have constitutionally underwritten group rights? How much chipping away of the foundations can we stand and still pump out the rhetoric about the great experiment?

“As a frenetic supporter of the global American empire and all possible wars fought in its name, he is the one writer in America to whom the neocons have given permission to criticize our current open immigration policy without getting his head chopped off. “
You forgot Hanson’s associate at NR, Joel Mowbray.

I disagree with Thucydides’ comments, which seem to buy into leftist stereotypes of mean, immigration-hating conservatives. There have been no shortage of “sensitive” opponents of immigration, including many Democrats and many immigrants, who have not been published by the Wall Street Journal.

Hanson’s loud support of the war plays a role, but so does twenty years of serious, sensitive, thoughtful argument which has made certain cliches completely unviable, even, apparently, to Paul Gigot.

Gigot has been as mindless and lockstep a supporter of open immigration, and automatic dismisser of any criticisms, as much as anyone. But the Bush plan goes so far beyond anything previously proposed that even a true believer like Gigot saw problems with it, and so published the Hanson piece.