Border Wars III -- A Slow Motion Train Wreck

Now that I have started on this topic, I find it hard to stop.

You have to almost feel sorry for Bush. He just can't win. The lead NYT editorial charachterized his proposals a "a victory for the fear-stricken fringe of the debate" for those "who say illegal border crossings must be stopped immediately, with military boots in the desert sand." But those who are calling for that are even more upset that the Times. James Taranto sums up some of it:

The Nativists Are Restless

Was President Bush's immigration speech last night a success? CNN suggests so:

In a CNN snap poll of 461 people who watched Monday's speech, 42 percent said they had a positive opinion of the president's immigration policies before they heard him speak. Afterward, 67 percent said they had a positive view, a jump of 25 percentage points.

. . .

"People who watch the speech do tend to be somewhat more Republican than the voters as a whole," CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider said. "But that wasn't the best response he's gotten compared to other speeches, in fact it was lower than any speech we've measured since he took office." [Empasis added].

One reason for that is that the nativist right is as implacable as the Angry Left. "If the purpose of the speech was to shore up the president's standing with conservatives, it failed," declares an editorial in Michelle Malkin, who has actually written a book defending Franklin D. Roosevelt's internment of Japanese-Americans, remarks: "The only good thing about watching the speech was getting to watch it in the Fox News green room with Colorado GOP Rep. Tom Tancredo, a stalwart immigration enforcement advocate. It was nice to have someone to shake heads along with as empty platitude after platitude was laid on thick."

Steve Sailer on VDare.com writes: "The Bush Administration has seemed never to notice that Mexico is not the 51st state, but a foreign country--one that is engaged in a slow-motion invasion of America. . . . Why is Bush doing this? I have suggested that his motives are dynastic--that he is selfishly sacrificing the GOP to build a family vehicle, much like Brian Mulroney sacrificed the Canadian Progressive Conservative party in a vain effort to build a personal fief in the French-speaking province of Quebec. Brenda Walker speculates he is a 'MexiChurian Candidate.' What he is not is an American patriot.

Sailer has the answer! We could eliminate the whole immigration issue at a stroke. All it would take would be to make Mexico the 51st state! The border between Mexico and Guatemala/Beliz can't be more than a few hundred miles. We could fortify that no problem.

It takes rare skill to piss off the NYT editorial page and Michelle Malkin at the same time.