The Right Side Of The Blogosphere’s Reaction To Bush’s Immigration Speech In Quotes

by John Hawkins | May 16, 2006 4:28 am

After the speech last night, I took a look around the right side of the blogosphere to get a sense of what people thought. The reaction was probably — oh, let’s say somewhere between 75-90% negative and to be truthful, as often as not, I got the impression that the bloggers who said they liked the speech were reading out of the old “root, root, root for the home team playbook” rather than genuinely being enthused about what Bush had to say.

Here are some of the comments that stood out:

“At the end of the day, the President rejects both amnesty and ‘know-nothingism” – his plan is the right plan in all respects, and we’ll now see whether or not the rest of our political class has the courage, generosity and simple human decency the President has shown tonight.” — Blogs For Bush[1]

“My initial reaction? President Bush tried reaching for the center — a position he has occupied on this issue all along. He tried a one-from-column-A, two-from-column-B approach that probably will leave all sides more or less dissatisfied.” — Captain’s Quarters[2]

…I think I’ll stick with with my original statement that Bush has split the Republican Party, but now a new question arises: is it a permanent split in the party, and if not, how long with it last?

I’m guessing it won’t be a permanent split, and that most Republicans will “come home” by the ’06 elections, but given this administration’s near-Palestinian capability to make the wrong choices at the wrong time, I don’t know that anyone can say that such a reconciliation is automatic. — Confederate Yankee[3]

“What the administration has spent the last couple of years doing is explaining that we need the wogs to do the nasty jobs that lazy Americans won’t do, therefore, we need to give them some path to citizenship, so that lazy, fat Americans don’t have to pick vegetables. He stayed away from that line of reasoning this evening. But, that seems to me like a politically-motivated conversion, rather than a statement of Mr. Bush’s core principles.

…The bottom line: The American people in general, and the Republican base in particular, simply don’t trust the president on this issue. The president’s past positioning on this issue, I think, adequately explains why.” — Dale Franks at The QandO Blog[4]

“The President is really out of touch on this issue, and since he’s not facing re-election, he thinks it’s ok to sell the American people down the river over this. But he has to remember, there are 435 members of the House of Representatives that ARE up for re-election, along with a third of the Senate. They go along with the President on this, they can kiss their re-election efforts good-bye.

That means, basically, that the Congress will be changing hands in November. And on January 3, 2007, the Democrats will be sworn in. On January 4, 2007, you can count of Democrats holding impeachment hearings. At this point, I’d almost support that. That’s how p*ssed I am right now.” — Iowa Voice[5]

“The only new thing in the speech was sending some unarmed National Guard troops to help the Border Patrol shuffle paper. The more appropriate headline would be “More Mush from the Wimp.” — Mark Krikorian at The Corner[6]

“I didn’t spend 35 years in the conservative movement for this. We’re supposed to jump up and down for 6,000 Guardsmen, which means about 2,000 functional Guardsmen at any given time (since they all don’t work 24/7)? By any factual analysis—costs to public education, the health-care system, entitlement programs, prison systems, etc.—unrestrained immigration is extremely detrimental to our country, as it would be for any country. And when you consider that the Senate bill now under consideration would result in some 100 million legal immigrants over the next 20 years—not including illegal aliens—the threat to this society is crystal clear. The U.S. cannot possibly assimilate such numbers, and the financial strain on federal, state, and local budgets is incalculable.” — Mark Levin[7]

“This is the same speech he’s delivered countless times. Does he expect a different result? Is he intentionally trying to drive his popularity down to 20%?” — The LoneWacko Blog[8]

“Delivery feels a bit more Mr. Rogers than commander-in-chief. I mean we have an emergency—our borders are out of control and during a time of war. You don’t get that sense. Get me Jack Bauer. I’ll stop now.” — Kathryn Jean Lopez at The Corner[9]

“President Bush keeps trying to find the middle ground, on this and many other issues. But sometimes, there isn’t a viable middle ground. This is one of those instances. President Bush is being destroyed by vicious people who hate him. So far, he hasn’t seemed to notice. Apparently, he doesn’t think he needs any allies. He certainly didn’t win any with tonight’s speech.” — Power Line[10]

“George W. Bush is an “open-borders” president, and it’s clear that no one, not even the base of voters his party needs to keep power will change his position. We need to keep the pressure on this congress and those who are coming up hoping to take residence in the White House. We must secure our borders and everything must be done to see that this happens. Bush’s half measures won’t do. We need to press on and demand a better plan.” — PunditGuy[11]

“Our political class has lost touch on the immigration issue. The president is supporting the Senate immigration bill that may be the worst single bill in American history. The Heritage Foundation estimates that if passed as is, the Hagel-Martinez bill could invite in as many as 200,000,000 legal immigrants in the next 20 years through amnesty and family chain migration, while doing nothing at all to stem the tide of illegal immigrants.

The impact of 200,000,000 immigrants in 20 years’ time is mind-boggling. No country on earth could remain the same country after taking in so many immigrants so fast.

….Tonight’s speech was a wasted opportunity to regain any of the stature he once had, and probably the last one he will get during his time in office. It’s a shame. He is a good man. He is just dreadfully wrong on this issue.” — Bryan Preston at Hot Air[12]

Bush Ensures Legacy With Speech. Unfortunately, visitors to a Bush ’43’ Library may have to cross the border into Mexico to take it all in. In a speech which was as much a eulogy for the so-called Reagan Revolution, as it was an unfortunate beginning to a pending political battle on immigration, President Bush all but declared himself irrelevant to the conversation. In essence, the sitting President of the United States through up his hands and declared, “No mas.” — Riehl World View[13]

Endnotes:
  1. Blogs For Bush: http://www.blogsforbush.com/mt/archives/007122.html
  2. Captain’s Quarters: http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/006992.php
  3. Confederate Yankee: http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/176767.php
  4. The QandO Blog: http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?entry=3876
  5. Iowa Voice: http://www.iowavoice.com/index.php?/archives/2036-My-Reaction-To-The-Presidents-Speech.html
  6. The Corner: http://corner.nationalreview.com/
  7. Mark Levin: http://levin.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MWU3NjU3YWRjOTRjN2I1OGEwM2IzZDQxNTc2ZTU0YTg=
  8. The LoneWacko Blog: http://lonewacko.com/blog/archives/005049.html
  9. The Corner: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjVkYmUyMTk3Zjg3ZDYzMWI0MWJlOTYyZjk4ZTI2NzQ=
  10. Power Line: http://powerlineblog.com/archives/014092.php
  11. PunditGuy: http://www.punditguy.com/2006/05/it_walks_like_a.html
  12. Hot Air: http://hotair.com/archives/the-blog/2006/05/15/a-wasted-opportunity/
  13. Riehl World View: http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2006/05/bush_ensures_le.html

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