{"id":7139,"date":"2006-04-14T10:08:02","date_gmt":"2006-04-14T14:08:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7139"},"modified":"2006-04-14T10:08:02","modified_gmt":"2006-04-14T14:08:02","slug":"bush-looks-for-a-way-out-of-immigration-mess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/bush-looks-for-a-way-out-of-immigration-mess\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush looks for a way out of immigration mess"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two days after congressional [tag]Republicans[\/tag] complained<\/a> that Bush has been a no-show in the [tag]immigration[\/tag] debate, the president decided to mix it up a little bit by blaming Harry Reid<\/a> for the legislative breakdown.<\/p>\n

Until late last week, Mr. [tag]Bush[\/tag] had, at least publicly, stayed to the side of the warring between factions of his party, and the [tag]Democrats[\/tag], as the Senate hashed out a compromise between sealing the nation’s borders and legalizing the illegal work force already here without granting what opponents could call “amnesty.”<\/p>\n

This week, Mr. Bush has placed himself at the vanguard of the issue, publicly lacerating the Senate minority leader, [tag]Harry Reid[\/tag], of Nevada, for blocking the legislation last week on procedural grounds.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Mr. Bush accused Mr. Reid of “single-handedly thwarting the will of the American people and impeding bipartisan efforts to secure this border, and make this immigration system of ours more humane and rational.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Apparently, the White House is taking this strategy fairly seriously. The NYT noted that Bush’s criticism of Reid was “followed up with e-mail messages from the White House to the news media.”<\/p>\n

First, on the substance, Reid was right to block the bill<\/a>. The Senate GOP has broken its word repeatedly, making one promise to Reid and then producing a far more conservative bill in conference committee. Dems weren’t going to fall for the trick again. “They thought once they got the bill into conference, they’d be fine,” Jim Manley, Reid’s spokesman told the NYT. “They miscalculated.”<\/p>\n

Second, what’s the point of Bush going after Reid now? To make a compromise more likely? I don’t think so; Reid isn’t bullied easily. It seems the White House knows it’s lost yet another round, is scared about looking weak (again), and is looking to place the blame elsewhere. It’s kind of sad, really.<\/p>\n

And third, on a less-substantive note, I was very fond of Reid’s response<\/a> to the president’s attack.<\/p>\n

“President Bush has as much credibility on immigration as he does on Iraq and national security,” shot back the Nevada Democrat.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reid can replace the word “immigration” with just about anything, and the response works just as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two days after congressional [tag]Republicans[\/tag] complained that Bush has been a no-show in the [tag]immigration[\/tag] debate, the president decided to mix it up a little bit by blaming Harry Reid for the legislative breakdown. Until late last week, Mr. [tag]Bush[\/tag] had, at least publicly, stayed to the side of the warring between factions of his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7139\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}