Karl Rove explains the administration’s immigration policy

February 9, 2007

National Review’s Mark Krikorian reports today:

According to a congressman’s wife who attended a Republican women’s luncheon yesterday, Karl Rove explained the rationale behind the president’s amnesty/open-borders proposal this way: “I don’t want my 17-year-old son to have to pick tomatoes or make beds in Las Vegas.”

Now, the comments seems to be coming at least second-hand, and as far as I can tell, there’s no video or audio of Rove’s speech.

But it’s an interesting quote if true. There were presumably quite a few people at this Republican women’s luncheon. Might one or two of them be willing to confirm whether Rove actually said this?

Karl Rove should be making license plates.

  • Hey, they can’t force the blacks to do it anymore, why not let the hard working Mexicans. These guys never cease to amaze me. Why bother disguizing the racism and classism when the people you are talking about can’t tough you anyway. Stupid, fat, cracker!

  • What happens when the second generation of Hispanic immigrants get skills (besides English language skill)? Who will do the low- and un-skilled then? Have they thought this through?

  • That’s funny; I thought Rove’s original line was:

    “If someone tried to make me pick tomatoes or make beds in Las Vegas, I’d be like, ‘HEY! Why don’t you stop…dressing me like a mailman…uh, and making me dance for you…while you go and…smoke crack in your bedroom… and have sex with…some guy…I don’t even know. On my dad’s bed.'”

  • I followed the link to Krikorian’s essay, expecting some kind of half-hearted apology for Rove’s statement, but no: he calls it “obscene”. Krikorian has different goals in mind, but at least we share that opinion of what Rove has said.

  • Hey Karl, how about if you start taking your 17 year old son to start talking to military recruiters instead of picking tomates or cleaning beds? Or is that too good for your spawn as well?

    The working people of this nation have to realize that the Republican hierarchy has nothing but contempt for you. If you work hard, a Republican looks at you like some lower life form that they would never want to be. Maybe Karl should quit eating tomatoes or sleeping in made beds if they were touched by such undignified beings.

    Work is honorable. Republican elitists don’t get that.

  • Karl has a son? What, was it by artificial insemination (like Jenna & No-Jenna)?
    ‘Cause I’m sure that Jeff Gannon wasn’t the Mom.

  • Not that I’d expect Karl to notice, but as far as I can tell from casual observation at our local construction sites, Mexicans have moved beyond picking tomatoes. They’ve taken over all the framing and carpentery jobs. Farmers have gone back to exploiting children for menial agriculture (hey, it builds character). My dream is that all the members of the Bush Crime Family will soon be reduced to pounding rocks in a Southern chain gang, honest work for a change.

  • How does filling jobs with immigrant labor make anyone’s son qualified for better-paying jobs??

  • Peterado makes a good point. Working for a living shouldn’t be considered dumb.

    What’s Karl trying to do, invoke CLASS WARFARE?

    On a personal note, I think my dad had the right idea when I was a teenager. When I was 16, he told me that he wasn’t going to get me a summer job where he worked (summer students got $18/hour) and that I would have to go out on my own and find my own damned job on whatever little pathetic abilities I had. He didn’t want me to expect things to be my due and he wanted his son to be able to stand up on his own. At the time and being 16 & stupid, I resented my dad for that. After a couple of years, I knew he was right. I grew up without that sense of entitlement that a lot of my peer group ended up with. Made me less of an asshole.

  • So in the past 250-300 years, we have come from:

    “Picking cotton is a job that I won’t do – why not have the african slaves do it for us for free?”

    to

    “Picking fruits is a job that I won’t do – why not have mexicans illegals do it for us for less than minimum wage off the books?”

    My, how far we’ve PROGRESSED..!! Flying cars might just be around the corner now…

  • In fairness to Karl, I do not want any of his relatives touching my tomatoes or my bedding. They can pick up my garbage, but not one step closer.

  • Perish the thought that a Repug child should have do some honest labor! And thank God for Mexicans willing to relieve them of that responsibility. Perhaps we should draft illegal aliens into the military, too, to make sure no Repug children ever have to go to war.

    What crap

  • Karl’s afraid the family will end up at their proper level in society. You can take the boy out of the gutter, but you can’t take the gutter out of the boy.

    Might be really interesting to mount a campaign about “When is Karl’s son going to join up and serve?” Start really pointing out how all the “Patriots” in this country have never served, will not allow their children to serve, and look down on those who do.

  • Kind of reminds of the rumors I heard about Babs Bush complaining that the Katrina refugees -“not our kind, dear” – were besmirching her lovely city of Houston and needed to return to their hovels in the swamp. I imagine that she was probably sipping vermouth and gazing out the window at Julio the poolboy while she said this. Possibly criticizing Jorge’s gardening skills, and her maid Consuela’s inability to fold napkins right at the same time, too.

    You’re right, JoeW. tThese highbrow airheads are too clumsy and stupid to handle delicate produce, and wouldn’t have the nads to finish a single row in the field. Maybe Karl and Georgie and their useless kids can get jobs carrying sandwich boards for Burger King or Taco Bell after they get their asses kicked out of D.C.

  • White House confirms Rove’s remark.

    Claims it was taken out of context.

    Also blames Krazy Mark Krikorian of Neoconservative Review Online for publicizing Rove’s comment.

    Prediction: Krazy Krikorian will lose his Magic White House Decoder Ring for this one.

  • “What happens when the second generation of Hispanic immigrants get skills (besides English language skill)? Who will do the low- and un-skilled then? Have they thought this through?”

    Why, of course they’ve thought it through, Slip kid. The Hispanic caucus and the advocacy groups have it all figured out. As the older workers become citizens, retire from the fields and collect Social Security, new Mexicans and other Latinos will enter by visa or unguarded border points and demand their entitlement for a job and persue their paths to citizenship. Since field workers have little education and upward mobility, they’ll swell the ranks of retirees whose sole source of income is Social Security. Because low income workers get more from Social Security than they put in, eventually, the whole entitlement program will become bankrupt. It’s all part of a Hispanic political powerplay to dominate California and the South West. Hispanic will obviously have priority in immigration because our politicians will establish a continuous guest worker program. Forget about European or Asian immigrants, as Hispanics have the advantage of geography.

  • I was hoping Karl Rove could answer a hypothetical question for me; If ,hypothetically, Karl Rove’s aristocratic 17 year old son was GAY,
    hypothetically, should he be allowed to marry Vice President Dick
    Cheney’s pregnant lesbian daughter? I ask this because this is just the type question that galvanizes the Republican base and I hope, hypothetically
    (should the marriage happen) , that an actuall marriage of 2 gay off-spring of notable Republicans will legitamize the rape of America.
    Thank you,
    Phil Di Marino

  • Why does no one ask Karl or Karen Hughes why their children are not serving in the military? Did they even consider military service for their children. How about a draft based on a pool of children whose parents support the war.

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