Bush and the Immigration Wars

The Base is going crazy. Conservative Brahmins, Talk-Radio Icons, Right Wing Bloggers, Callers, Readers and Writers are hopping and quivering with indignation. They're threatening to stay home on election day and let the Republicans get the beating they deserve.

Fuses are blowing, heads are exploding, nervous ticks are prevalent.

Peggy Noonan, in today's Opinion Journal suggests that there is a "disconnect" between the Administration and the Base. She wonders if, rather than the Base finding it doesn't much like George W. Bush, it is the President who finds he doesn't much like his Base. She muses that great power isolates the powerful and creates un-examined certainty.

I suppose that living in the rarified world of POTUS for years could have that effect. And it is certainly true that nearly everybody who cheered and supported this President on the Islamic War is feeling betrayed, surprised and angry at him over Immigration. The response is outrage and confusion, persistent and growing.

I'm pissed too. But I'm not perplexed, which seems to be the predominant emotion of people on all sides of the issue.

The Political Pragmatist can't understand how Bush could watch his numbers reach the bottom of the Marianas Trench and not leap on the popular side of this surfboard with both feet and ride the wave back to glory. They are bemused and perplexed.

The Principled Conservative can't understand how he can be so disengaged from an issue they see as critical to the defense of our culture, our homeland and our lives. They are furious and perplexed.

They've all missed the boat. (I am fond of my continuing Ocean Metaphor)

Since President Bush was elected, one of the things that we have loved about him is that he says what he means, and he does what he says. We respected and cheered him as he slogged on in the Islamic War, in the face of the combined fury of the gaseous MSM, the sissified churches, the hysterical Left, the corrupt and cowardly "world community", and traitors entrenched inside federal bureaucracies, all battling endlessly to undermine his support, his will, his confidence and his courage.

We said, proudly, "Look, here is a man who does not put his finger in the wind and follow the current trends. This is a man who leads, and who will, against all opposition, do what he thinks is right.

Hello!

When did he stop being that person? Well, never. It doesn't seem to have occured to all these perplexed and disoriented critics that he has not changed at all. He is doing, in the face of OUR opposition, just what he did in the face of THEIR oppositon: Precisely, and stubbornly what he thinks is right.

Please, don't misunderstand. I could not disagree with him more on the issue of ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION. I think his position is untenable, dangerous, misguided and suicidal. But, I have no doubt that he believes it's correct and righteous, and will go down with the ship in the face of a general Republican mutiny. He will not be intimidated by members of the Base any more than he was intimidated by members of Al Qaeda.

I think it's as simple as that. I think George W. Bush is a man who sticks to his principles whether its hard or easy, whether he loses friends or makes them, whether it's profitable or not, whether he looks good or looks bad. And for that I hold him in the highest esteem. It's a rare enough quality in the real world; it's damn near extinct in Washington.

That being said, I think his compassion is compromising his conservatism beyond recognition. He cannot be trusted at the helm in the Immigration Wars.

(I'm not mentioning shooting any of the bastards in a post about the President. The secret service is so very touchy about that)

The Gunslinger