On "This Week with George Stephanopolous," Virginia's junior Sen. George Allen had an "interesting" (or perhaps more accurately, mind numbing?) exchange on immigration with Stephanopolous. Here are key excerpts:Allen: Giving illegal immigrants a path towards "earned citizenship" is "rewarding illegal behavior." "We're...a nation of laws. I think it's vitally important that we, first and foremost, recognize there's a consensus in America that we need to secure our borders."
Allen: "My view of the situation is that we have neglected as a government our first responsibility... to secure our borders....[we need] more detention facilities rather than the 'catch and release' apprach. We need unmanned aerial vehicles, sensors, patrol agents...virtual fences, actual fences." [Lowell's comment: if the government has "neglected" its duty here, who does Allen blame for that, since HIS PARTY has controlled the government since 2001?!?]
On the 700-mile wall, Allen punted, saying that he's "not going to get into whether you need 612 miles versus 110 miles." [Lowell's comment: Huh? Anyone know what Allen's talking about here?]
Stephanopolous: "So, is it a bottom line for you that anyone here illegally now is going to have to go home first before they can be put back on a path towards citizenship?"
Allen: "I'm not sure if we have a consensus on that yet."
Stephanopolous stops him and says "I'm asking what about you."
Allen: "Here's what I want us to do, I want us to secure our borders. Then, it may be, several years down the road or months down the road, we can get a consenus on how you handle a good temporary worker system..."
Stephanopolous: "You're saying now, basically, you want to do what the House of Representatives has done, pass an enforcement and security bill now, no guest worker provision, no path towards citizenship for illegals here, and then maybe revisit that many years down the road, but you're saying now, enforcement and security only."
Allen: "The one thing we have a consensus on in this country right now is that the United States government has been neglecting its responsibility to secure the border....I do agree mostly with the Cornyn/Kyl approach which, over a period of time, if somebody wants to become a legal citizen, they're going to have to return to their home country...but then they're going to have to enter legally."
Stephanopolous: "...I just want to get a yes or no here, because I think you're not quite willing to say yes or no... you're saying right now pass border security enforcement only this year, push off the guest worker and the other proposals for subsequent years. That means your taking on the President; he says he wants comprehensive reform now."
Allen: "Well, unless the comprehensive reform, and any of this so-called temporary worker/ guest worker, unless that does not reward illegal behavior, I don't think we ought to be passing anything that rewards illegal behavior or amnesty. Is that different than the President's position, apparently so. But I'm going to stick to the principle first and foremost we need to secure our borders. We ARE a country of immigrants but we're also a country of laws. And we do need to enforce the rule of law."
Stephanopolous: "Let me ask you about this Cornyn-Kyl approach you just mentioned...."
Allen: "You don't actually send them back, they're going to have to go back. This whole approach that you're actually going to round up 10 million people and send them back, that's not the approach. The approach is that if they want to stay in this country legally, they're going to have to go back to their home countries."
Stephanopolous plays quote by John McCain: "You've got to tell me how you do that. George Will said Sunday you'd have to line up 200,000 buses from San Diego to Alaska. Someone's going to have to explain to us how you do that. It's not possible. And of course, what's the cost involved?"
Allen: "The answer to Senator McCain is you enforce the rule of law in this country. And it's not that we're going to be rounding up...that's the argument of those who are in favor of amnesty or rewarding illegal..." [Lowell's comment: Allen simply doesn't answer John McCain's question. Allen has no clue.]
Stephanoplous: "But people aren't going to go back on their own."
Allen: "Well, in the event that you have a workable, temporary worker system, say the seasonal worker approach (H2-B)...if you have a good legal guest worker system or temporary worker system, employers will choose that approach. Ultimately, of course, the main point is enforce the law; right now it is illegal to hire those who are [here] illegally...and then those who are here illegally, by the way, will see that they can't find work in this country and they're gonna have to leave." [Lowell's comment: translation from Allen-ese, "blah blah blah."]
Stephanopolous: "The President and his allies are worried that your party is going to be cast as the anti-immigrant party...top Republican strategist close to the President [said] that the enforcement-only approach..is perhaps good short-term politics for some of you in the mid-terms, but in the long term it's going to alienate the Republican Party from the fastest growing voter group in America, Hispanics."
Allen: "...you call it 'enforcement only,' I look at it and characterize it as controlling our borders." [Lowell's comment: Allen again avoids Stephanopolous' question, and the extremely important political point here. What. Ever.]
The bottom line is that George Allen's position on immigration is sheer, simple-mined idiocy ("enforce the law, enforce the law...raar, Polly wanna cracker...enforce the law"). It's also utter hypocrisy. According to George Will, we need 900,000 immigrants per year - 300,000 illlegally - if we're going to meet our requirements. Americans want low prices for produce, for child care, for landscaping, for just about everything. Businesses want cheap labor. But people like George Allen simply blabber on about enforcing the law while bashing illegal immigrants, basically because they are helpless and without a voice politically.
Meanwhile, guess who George Allen takes money from? Yep, our old favorite, Smithfield Foods, one of the largest employers - and exploiters - of illegal immigrants in the country. Since 2000, Smithfield has given Allen a total of $13,000. This is even worse, in some ways, than the money Allen took from convicted lobbyists/felons, Jack Abramoff and Tony Rudy. In both cases, though, it's really bad.
Switching from immigration, Stephanopolous concludes by asking Allen about his run for reelection to the U.S. Senate this year:
Stephanopolous: "You're up for reelection this November and you've drawn an interesting opponent...James Webb, former Republican [who's] switched over to the Democratic Party" who recently said, "The Republican Party of George W. Bush is not the Republican Party of Ronald Reagan. I think it has moved to the extreme on social issues.. Bush's spending has.put the nation in debt and betrayed conservative economic principles...foreign policy under Bush is something Reagan would have foresaken."
Allen: "Mr. Webb obviously doesn't like President Bush very much...I think President Bush has provided strong leadership for this country...I think that he's taken the war to the terrorists...our economy is actually doing very well..."
A couple of observations on this exchange. First, Stephanopolous only mentions Jim Webb as Allen's opponent, not that other Democrat running this year. Second, Allen rambles on about how he thinks President Bush has been such a great leader, including on the war in Iraq (although not, apparently, on immigration, where Allen believes Bush has failed and is proposing that we reward illegal behavior; got that?). Jim Webb, of course, strongly opposed the Iraq War since 2002. And Webb was a "Reagan Democrat" who served in the Reagan Administration as Navy Secretary, so how can Allen go after Webb, when Allen's great hero - Reagan - hired Webb for his Administration?
The bottom line is that Webb vs. Allen - and it's 90% certain that it WILL be Webb vs. Allen - is going to be an interesting race: a fresh, new voice (Webb) who used to be a Republican but thinks today's Republican Party has gone off the right-wing deep end socially and fiscally, versus a guy (Allen) who is bored with the Senate and thinks George W. Bush has been doing a heck of a job. I can't wait for the debates!