{"id":7419,"date":"2006-05-16T09:10:10","date_gmt":"2006-05-16T13:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7419"},"modified":"2006-05-16T09:10:10","modified_gmt":"2006-05-16T13:10:10","slug":"bush-aims-for-middle-ground-but-misses-everyone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/bush-aims-for-middle-ground-but-misses-everyone\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush aims for ‘middle ground,’ but misses everyone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night, in his first [tag]Oval Office[\/tag] address<\/a> on domestic public policy, [tag]Bush[\/tag] had a few goals in mind. It’s not at all clear he achieved any of them<\/a>.<\/p>\n

President Bush, acknowledging that the nation “has not been in complete control of its [tag]borders[\/tag],” said Monday that he would send as many as 6,000 [tag]National Guard[\/tag] troops to help secure the border with [tag]Mexico[\/tag] and would boost funding to train local authorities to assist in detaining illegal immigrants.<\/p>\n

In a rare prime-time address from the Oval Office, Bush sought to build momentum behind a broad overhaul of [tag]immigration[\/tag] laws now before [tag]Congress[\/tag]. His proposals to tighten border security were aimed at winning support from conservative lawmakers who say the nation’s top concern must be to stop illegal border crossings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Did the proposals win anyone over? Apparently not.<\/p>\n

For one thing, the plan isn’t terribly ambitious. When the White House said it wanted to avoid militarizing the border, it meant it — the 6,000 troops won’t even be seizing illegal immigrants or patrolling the border; they’ll instead help provide logistical support and taking on administrative tasks. Conservatives envisioned Guard troops taking on law-enforcement responsibilities, nabbing those who try to enter the country illegally. That’s not Bush’s plan at all. As the LA Times put it<\/a>, “[T]he president’s big initiative is heavy on symbolism but will be small in scale — and largely invisible on the ground.”<\/p>\n

For that matter, the White House doesn’t even pretend<\/a> to pay for the $2 billion initiative, which means, like all Bush spending, it just gets added to the national debt.<\/p>\n

Border-state [tag]governors[\/tag]<\/a> from both parties don’t think much of the president’s plan, congressional Dems<\/a> were critical, and [tag]Republicans[\/tag] on the Hill<\/a> seem more than willing to hang Bush out to dry on this.<\/p>\n

And then there are the conservative activists<\/a>, whom Bush hoped to bring back into the fold.
\n<\/p>\n

On Monday, for example, conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh — normally a loyal surrogate for the Republican cause — used his show to all but ridicule the president’s approach to the issue.<\/p>\n

Asserting that Bush was trying to appeal to Latinos at the expense of his political base, Limbaugh dismissed Bush’s plan to dispatch National Guard troops to the border with Mexico as mere “window dressing” that would have little effect on stemming illegal immigration.<\/p>\n

“They’ll be down there for a few weeks. They’ll go home,” Limbaugh said, according to a transcript posted on his website. “The border will be open as usual.”<\/p>\n

Richard A. Viguerie, a longtime conservative activist, issued a statement Monday denouncing Bush’s “liberal” immigration policies.<\/p>\n

“When President Bush says to his supporters, ‘Trust me on immigration,’ he has exhausted his reservoir of good faith with [tag]conservatives[\/tag],” Viguerie said. “Americans, especially conservatives, are beginning to tune the president out.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s relatively mild compared to the disappointment expressed by some of the leading far<\/a>–right<\/a> blogs. Malkin went so far as to say, “Bush has lost touch with reality.”<\/p>\n

If the Bush gang expected last night’s address to shore up the base, I think they’re going to be disappointed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night, in his first [tag]Oval Office[\/tag] address on domestic public policy, [tag]Bush[\/tag] had a few goals in mind. It’s not at all clear he achieved any of them. President Bush, acknowledging that the nation “has not been in complete control of its [tag]borders[\/tag],” said Monday that he would send as many as 6,000 [tag]National […]<\/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-7419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7419","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=7419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7419\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}