Dumbocracy in Action: The Immigration Bill Goes Down

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Dumbocracy in Action: The Immigration Bill Goes Down

Posted Jun 28th 2007 1:30PM by Mo Rocca
Filed under: George Bush, Democrats, Republicans, 9/11, Illegal Immigration, Mo Rocca

When Joel Kaplan, Bush's Deputy Chief of Staff, offered a comprehensive briefing on the Immigration Bill before its demise earlier today, he made a lot of sense:

"Look, this is a complicated bill. It's taken some time for people to understand what's in there. Obviously, it's a compromise and it's in the nature of compromise that everyone doesn't get everything they want."

But here's the problem: We're not conditioned to hear complicated proposals from this White House. They've been more committed than any White House in memory to turning us into simpletons. The President has been proud of framing everything in black-and-white. (If "nuance" weren't a French word, would he hate it as much?)
From the beginning, keeping things as simple as possible has been a guiding principle of the Bush White House. Remember Bush naming Jesus Christ as his favorite philosopher at a 2000 New Hampshire debate? A bold answer, shared of course by millions. But what was Bush's reason? "Because he changed my heart." That's it? That's your reason for naming the central figure in Western religion? You've still got 30 seconds, Mr. President. How about something from the Sermon on the Mount? Anything?

His answer ranked with Paris Hilton's answer to Larry King when he asked for her favorite Bible passage. (Answer: She smiled and looked away.)

But until now it's been hard to argue with the simpleton strategy. He got us into Iraq with three letters (a record in crystallization): WMD. And it got him re-elected with three numbers (with a slash through the first and second): 9/11. The 2004 Republican Convention was a master class in messaging: Each night had a smartly named theme but the whole thing was really 9/11, 9/11, 9/11. Ironic that the Democrats, the party in bed with Hollywood, can't produce its way out of the electoral toilet. Their convention was a total snooze.

I'd give Trent Lott points for courage (madness?) in criticizing talk radio for branding a complicated Immigration bill as nothing more than mass amnesty - except that talk radio's not to blame. The right-wing hosts didn't like the amnesty part of the bill so naturally they were going to highlight that part of it and ignore the tightened border security, guest-worker program, and fines. That's their prerogative and they'd be stupid not to exercise it.

(Meanwhile poor sad John Kerry once again misses the point and wants to resurrect the Fairness Doctrine so that talk radio will be more diverse. Classic loser issue for the Democrats. What's next? A bill to affirm the rights of Americans to burn the flag? I'm shocked that the normally sensible Dianne Feinstein would even flirt with the idea of bringing back the Fairness Doctrine.)

President Bush, you probably won't have another shot at Immigration legislation. But if you do, make sure you make it easier to understand.

Start with "immigration": That thar werdz got fore big sillables! Ow my hed hertz!!

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Reader Comments ( Page 3 of 15)

Previous 15 Comments | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Most Recent | Next 15 Comments

31. Deny Illigals ALL social serivces. They will deport themselves. Very simple. End of problem!

Attila at 5:40PM on Jun 28th 2007

32. The people in Washinton don't get it but the ammerican people do! The last time there was an amnesty they promised to stop the illegal border crossing but they did not do it.

STOP THE ILLEGAL BORDER CROSSING AND MAKE IT EASYER TO GET ACROSS THE BORDER IN A "LEGAL" WAY.

After that let's talk about amnesty.

Gary Dial at 5:40PM on Jun 28th 2007

33. I agree with #6.

The general middle to lower class sections of the American public do not trust in government. Hence, many of us do not vote. I don't vote. What is the point? Nobody in this country stands up honestly as a politician because the system of favors and trade-offs makes it impossible. We learn this in grade school. If you want to be popular in your class, you have to hang out with a certain crowd and ignore other crowds. If you want to win an election, you have to grant favors.

I skeptical when I saw Arnold, our Gov. here in Calif, work for free. To hold his office for free. Still, I don't trust him. There is a catch there somewhere.

Illegal immigrants surround me everywhere I go. In my industry at work, in my neighborhood and standing out on Franklin Blvd. right here in Sacramento... every morning I get to see almost 100 of them. The police patrol the area and do nothing. I watch them run up to the landscaping trucks that pull up looking for 4 or 5 cheap laborers for the day's work. They litter the streets with trash they buy at the gas station across the street. The gas station doesn't mind since they're ecstatic over all the extra business.

This has become a part of America's day to day. It will never change. Nobody really cares. It's all about political stalling.

Put off the public and make it all look like you're doing something while all this time, you have no real plan to do anything.

I agree with #6.

c4ligrl at 5:28PM on Jun 28th 2007

34. Hey, taxman, thnx.

I was just trying to stop people from painting all illegal immigrants with the same brush. Good Americans get a piece of junk info in their brains and keep spewing it out over and over. And the truth seldom catches up to mistaken first impressions.

I get it. Landscapers, house painters, construction workers..."independent contractors" and no 1099s in sight. I wonder how many good Americans who hold yard sales and sell at flea markets, crafts fairs, farmers markets, etc., report the income on their taxes. Or how about the few bazillion or so people who "free lance"? Graphic designers, plumbers, tax preparers, etc.?

It's an underground economy that goes untouched for very practical reasons. Unenforceability. But I suspect that people who keep harping on illegals not paying income taxes use it as a smokescreen b/c they just don't like them damn ferners, brown ones, yellow ones, any ones and their damn fern ways.

Just listen to the vitriol spewing from some of our fellow posters here. Many rarely let facts and reason, let alone compassion, get in the way of their biases, prejudices and hostile epithets.

Anyone have a dollar figure on the taxes these ferners are not paying? Less than the $.5 trillion we've spent on The Decider's War in Iraq?

I long for the opportunity to see the masses of Americans who will rush forward to pick the produce of American farmers when dem ferners leave. I, personally, am looking forward to the day I start buying peaches at $26 per pound and a good sweet $4 grape. As long as my fellow Americans are fat and happy...and there are no damn ferners around...

Liz at 5:38PM on Jun 28th 2007

35. Gary Dial writes:

STOP THE ILLEGAL BORDER CROSSING AND MAKE IT EASYER TO GET ACROSS THE BORDER IN A "LEGAL" WAY.

Could you explain or expand upon that a bit? Why would your simple idea work?

Honestly, I don't get all the noise over illegal immigration. I've never seen a more hardworking, inexhaustible, motivated group of people as recent "immigrants" legal or illegal now or in the last century. It's not as though the country's economy is falling apart. Make these people legal quickly. Bring them into the legal economy, make them pay their way from today on.
Done!

Next issue!

Liz at 5:50PM on Jun 28th 2007

36. Lets face it. No matter how many criminals flood this country...learn in mexico through pamplets and booklets how to get everything for free on the US buck...pump out a litter of kids who will learn to scream 'discrimination' as their only english doctrine...bring the corrupt society views of their country...wrap themselves up in the mexican flag while driving intoxicated down the roads...to the wonderful politicians we have, it is all about the vote so they can stay in power and line their pockets with cash and favors.

Kramer at 6:11PM on Jun 28th 2007

37. Hi Mo,
I’ve lived in Texas for 42 years, and have witnessed the Hispanic alien problem mutate from being pesky at best to becoming a full out invasion. They are going to take over the Southwest without firing a shot if the United States continues to look the other way. They are no longer in the shadows as Senator Kennedy loves to harp about. These guys are front and center and boldly in our faces down here. They do not plan to go anywhere anytime soon. The “Reconquista” is not fantasy any longer.

Here in Texas: United States citizens now are boldly ridiculed for not speaking Spanish in shopping malls…last year at our 4th of July fireworks celebration (in Houston), a large contingent of Hispanics spent most of the evening shouting “viva Mexico” causing many of us to want to send them back right then and there…Mexican flags are commonplace in many sections of our city that has been infiltrated by thousands of Hispanics during the past decade. The store fronts have been painted over (a blue next to a lime green next to a pepper red etc., without an English word to be seen) to reflect the same Hispanic style you used to see only when you crossed the border. They do not plan to assimilate. A Country within Country is asking for trouble IMHO.

Senator Kennedy…I have a solution. I once put out a bird feeder and a handful of birds stopped to eat. Within a few weeks, they brought many of their friends and I had to put out more and more feed. Soon there were birds chirping at all hours of the day demanding I put out more birdseed so there would be enough to go around. The hundreds of griping birds became too much to take finally so I decided to stop putting any birdseed out. Within a week all the birds were gone. I.E…CUT OFF THE GRAVY TRAIN AND THE PROBLEM WILL TAKE CARE OF ITSELF. This is a tough solution we should have the guts to make.

eremor at 7:34PM on Jun 28th 2007

38. Ho Mo, is the president kidding. This bill is a compromise for everyone. Wait lets just take a look at a few things. The Bushman and Teddy Boy Kennedy on the same page along with the senate majority leader Harry Reid. Thats the guy who gave us the new phrase, "UNDOCUMENTED AMERICANS", Oh my god have you ever heard anything as funny as that.
Where have the 12 to 16 million illegals who are distroying our country compromising? Can anyone tell us. THEY WILL GET MEDICAL CARE, SOCIAL SECURITY
WHICH THEY HAVE NOT PAID INTO AND A HOST OF OTHER THINGS, THAT LEGAL PEOPLE, YOU KNOW THOSE BORN HERE
CAN NOT GET.
OUR POLITICIANS BROUGHT US TO THIS PLACE, NOW LET THEM DO THE RIGHT THING. Stop cattering to the special interest groups and go back to work for the American people.
Secure our borders, all illegals must come in or when found they go right back to where they came from.
Stop with the crap that it is just to much work to do what is right.
Only a politician could use such a weak excuse.

bluqe at 6:25PM on Jun 28th 2007

39. Yanno, you can bleat all you want about illegals, breaking the law, they shouldn't be here, etc.

But here's the fact: they ARE here.

Here's another: how many of you Mayflower descendents wouldn't do the same thing if you'd be born in, say, El Salvador?

We cannot round up 12 million people and deport them! It is not physically possible. Heck, we can't find them now!

Why do they come here? Economic reasons. So here's a simple solution: remove the economic incentives for them to sneak across the border. Meet 'em at the border and sign 'em up as taxpayers. Let's have EVERYONE paying taxes -- with a DISCOUNT for US CITIZENS. Make it more expensive for illegals.

Then, let's fine the heck out of employers who hire illegals who are not paying taxes, thereby removing their incentive to "import cheap labor." Put them out of business with punative fines; make it so prohibitively expensive that they don't dare do it.

Then, let's recognize the cold truth: these folks are here. And part of the reason they are is that we "regular Americans" wanted stuff cheap. No one's hands are clean in this thing.

This isn't Nazi Germany; we can't go around rounding up "undesirables" and removing them. Like it or not, they are now part of American life and our reality. Let's deal with it.

Oh, and Congress? Do your dang job. Your job isn't to get your sound byte on the evening news; your job, the one we elected you to do, is to FIX THIS.

spair at 6:38PM on Jun 28th 2007

40. Why can't we just outsource jobs to Mexico/Cuba/wherever? It's legal and produces the same effect, minus having to deal with the crime and language barriers. India and China shouldn't be the only countries to have all the fun. Come on! Let's also give them the jobs Americans *do* want to do!

Bitter graphic designer,
Maya

Maya at 6:37PM on Jun 28th 2007

41. Its offensive that people who oppose amnesty are demeaned as simpletons.Dumbocracy???? We don't oppose the amnesty because we don't understand it.... we oppose it because we UNDERSTAND it all too well. This has been tried before and it failed.Millions more illegals came here. Border enforcement has to come first before anything else. So far it has not. Legislation has to be passed that does not grant an illegal a foothold in the country simply becuase he drops an anchor baby here. What do you imagine would happen when we gave a pass to those 400 thousand "temporary" workers each year....400 thousand anchor babies!!!! Bet on it!! When people moan that immigration officials are "breaking up families" by deporting the few Mexicans they do, I ask, why don't these illegals take their kids with them? Isn't that what any parent would do? What is more important,having a parent or keeping easy access to an expensive mall? They knew the consequences when they came here illegally, they knew the chances they took when they had their kids. As far as them "doing jobs Americans won't do",,,,thats crap. Who do you think DID THEM all these decades????? WE DID!!! Do Americans agitate for higher wages? You bet, and these people help to permanently depress wages in the job market. Try to get your college teen a job...., what employer would not prefer a mature ( illegal) adult instead? These kids, American kids, are being aced out of the entry level jobs that used to teach them what work was like, give them a foothold into the economy, job experience. And I for one am tired of going to McDonalds, giving my order three times to a person who can't understand English, and having the wrong order arrive anyway. "Illegals...doing jobs Americans USED to do, and doing them badly and with poor English."

To all the Senators who voted for this bill today, who do you think you represent, the illegals, or the Americans who pave their way with their hard earned tax dollars? You are a disgrace and I hope everyone remembers who you are come the next election, and votes you OUT!!! Hammer the employers who hire illegals with massive fines and lets see how they start to trickle home when the work dries up. Maybe they can hire some unemployed Americans instead. NO AMNESTY.......EVER!!!!!

LJ at 6:45PM on Jun 28th 2007

42. Can someone please explain to me why many/most people think all illegal immigrants are from Mexico? Nothing could be farther from the truth.
There are people in this country from all over the world who came in with student or temporary visas who have never updated their visas or just decided to "melt into the crowd". The goverment needs to update the system - NOW.
However, it need not be 400 pages long, as the bill was. American HAS becomed "dumbed down", as some suggest. Look at the vocabulary of the average American: From what I've read, it's now at a sixth grade level. I've had friends of mine who are teachers tell me that their students are writting reports in text messaging! Apparently, those are the bright ones, most kids today don't know how to write a report.
Parents: I suggest that you turn off the TV and take a look at your child's homework, be they in grade school or college. Teach them how to use a *gasp* dictonary. A real one, made out of paper.
Back to the subject:Our current immigration system has no way of keeping track of legal immigrants, much less the illegals who cross our southern border.
We need to forbid the banks from giving house/car/other loans to illegals.
Stop making every child who is born in this country of an illegal mother a citizen. That way they can't use the excuse of "splitting up families" for a free ride.
Stop the special classes for Spanish speaking children. I don't see anything written in any other launguage. Other people have to learn English to survive in America, and do so; the Latinos get off too easy. In Arizona, everything from TV stations to billboards to our voting cards are written in English AND Spainish. No other ethnic group gets this special treatment. Why? The Latinos are not stupid people. They can learn English just as our Great Great Grandfathers did.

Sally in Southern Arizona at 7:25PM on Jun 28th 2007

43. In effect, the vast majority of Americans have spoken: The proposed immigration bill rated a Thumbs Down. We loved it not...
Yes, Mo--it was complicated, complex, convoluted, a corkscrewed, nonsensical mishmash. Compromise or con?
The answer might be discerned in the particular which pledged to shut down the porous southern border. But no new legislation is required to do that. It should have been done decades ago, an automatic obligation of our dearly beloved Patricians in Phonyland on the Potomac...
It can and should be done now--Shut off the spigot, totally and without mawkish reservations about who gets hurt and how. Seal the fooken border!
Then we'll talk about the millions of Illegals and what to do about them. To start: Last in, first out. Next, boot the gangbangers and other criminals--shoot resisters. Close all loopholes in social-service handouts, all of them. Then draw up a practical (workable) plan which will allow English-speaking, law-abiding job seekers to pursue legal status in this country. Assimilation would be nice too--though it looks like the Goths and VisaGoths have already entered Rome in the provinces of Texas and California...
No more claptrap, wideranging amnesty programs (by any other 1984 nomenclature). Make it plain, make it simple, make it clearly in tune with the longstanding Immigration Law of the USA...
And make it stick...
In other words: Cut the shaat, and get real, pronto...

Bill Barry at 6:57PM on Jun 28th 2007

44. When politicians claim to know whats best for the population, you have a big problem. I personally had no problem with the bill, but it isnt what most Americans wanted, and when the government can create and enforce laws, against the will of the people, for a purpose they claim is for the good of the American people, but which most Americans oppose, liberty is in danger.

Ryan at 7:06PM on Jun 28th 2007

45. No jobs for illegal immigrants. Heavy fines and jail time for people who employee them. No government sponsored social programs for illegals. Illegal immigrants would no longer have a reason to be or come here. End of problem. No fence - no fines - no amnesty like in 1986 (that worked so well)

Even us stupid blue collar middle class people can understand that. Why can't the white collar educated bottom feeding Pols and media?

David at 7:17PM on Jun 28th 2007

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Mo Rocca appears on a bunch of shows, including CBS News Sunday Morning (with the indescribably wonderful Charles Osgood), The Tonight Show on NBC, and NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! He's a sometime judge on Iron Chef and was featured on Telemundo's Amore Descarado. Last year he starred on Broadway in the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. His expose "All the President's Pets" was published by Crown in 2004.