MS:

Richard Cohen thinks that Bush is a neo-liberal.

Cohen writes:

... George W. Bush [is] more liberal than you might think.

You recoil, I know. After all, the conventional wisdom is that Bush is the most conservative of all presidents, an advocate of limited government, minimal taxes and, when it comes to the quintessentially liberal concern with civil liberties, the man who gave us the twin black eyes of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. It’s an appalling record.

IC:

“when it comes to the quintessentially liberal concern with civil liberties, the man who gave us the twin black eyes of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. It’s an appalling record.....”

{Yawn} And that’s where I stopped reading.

And no, I didn’t “recoil.” When someone like Richard Cohen quotes “conventional wisdom” about Bush’s alleged “conservatism” and then attempts to contradict it, and further evokes the “twin black eyes” of AG and Gitmo, it’s time to clean crumbs from the toaster, or re-arrange the fridge magnets. Any other activity is a more productive use of one’s precious time.

AOA:

My thought exactly, IC.

I guess Cohen is a closet liberal himself - comeon, AG and Guantanamo? Could you be any more obvious?

MS:

He’s not a closet liberal, AOA, he’s a real liberal. So of course he’s being obvious. But what I thought was interesting about the article was not the typical liberal professions which I ignored, but that a liberal is able to partially remove the blinders and see that in many respects Bush is a neo-liberal.

Most of them are too blinded by BDS to see anything of the sort.

IC:

Correction: they are not “too blinded by BDS to see anything of the sort” -- they are too richly invested in Bush demonology to PUBLICLY ACKNOWLEDGE these facts. It’s one of their many dirty little secrets -- e.g., they know Gitmo is no Gulag, but the meme is part of ‘Discredit Bush’ mission creep.

AA:

MS, agreed. I suspect, though, that it is actually Bush’s liberal streak that arouses BDS in the libs. It’s as if they feel he’s “stolen” something that belongs to them.

EPA:

Eisenhower looks pretty good now

PGO:

There are critical moments in history when an action taken (or not taken, whatever the case may be) changes the course of human history.

When Eisenhower backed Nasser and forced France and Israel to stand down over the seizure of the Suez canal, that was the opening salve in the Islamic war against the west. And Eisenhower surrendered.

Terrible awful mistake ................ enormous

EPA:

They all make mistakes, BIG ones.

It would be an interesting book for Newt and William Fortschen to cover what paths would have resulted from displacing Nasser right then, while Sayd Qutb was a free man.

Harry Truman decided to back the French over that guy pestering him for help, Ho Chi Minh. But he did okay in May of 48, and then again later that year over Berlin.

Just thinking about FDR and the jews makes me ill. But as Hopkins told Churchill (in early 41), they wanted to lick that son of a bitch Hitler and didn’t give a damn about anything else.

Ike sent in the marines in Beirut, and MADE IT STICK. The problem for him in the Sinai in 56 was that it was too colonial power-ish. And he certainly BLEW it over Gary Powers.

Right now, Bush appears to me to be utterly destroyed. He is castigating his natural support as ‘nativists’, and it’s all gone way past scratching our heads. Do these people display all the skills it will take to do away with the mullahs? Will those characterized as ‘nativists’ (ie racists?) because they voice concern over border security support him over plans (assuming there are any) for Iran?

Not when his actions are not consonant with ANY philosophy. It just looks like scattershot reactions which in practice won’t advance our cause or security.

Newt and Peggy are right. IMHO. I am VERY sorry to conclude.

The opening salvo in the war on the west occurred the moment Mohammed’s auditory tumor yielded hallucinations he was able to hear. It is a war on everyone, and we just happen to be here. Not that THAT makes any diff. ;)

AOA:

Bush is trying his best to get his name into history in a at least non-100% negative way, shifting the focus a little bit from the debacle in Iraq. Too bad he is alienating his base - but, thinking about it, it now doesn’t matter what he does, he is not seeking reelection or anything. He is becoming indeed a lameduck president, as is the sad fate of most in his position.

RB:

I refuse to jump onto the anti-Bush bandwagon. It would have been soooo much worse if Kerry had been elected; too horrible to imagine.

Don’t forget the Gorebot. Imagine him as Commander-in-Chief after 9/11. Every US retaliatory consideration would be subordinate to the whims of the UN.

AA:

Bush has disappointed me (and all of us, I’m sure) many times in the last couple of years. But he’s still achieved enormous things in the face of determined opposition.

Whether the let-downs of the post-11/06 era are the result of a simple failure of nerve on Bush’s part, or whether there is more to the picture than we are seeing now, we may never know. Yes, I’m plenty angry with W on illegal immigration and Jerusalem. But the opera ain’t over yet .....

PGO:

Good point but that does not excuse Bush’s complete capitulation and neo State Arabist mentality. He has moved the bar so low that anyone one center or right of him is labeled a right wing extremist. There is no difference between him and the left.

CS:

I think what’s so disappointing about Bush (at least to me) is that he set the bar very high right after 9/11 and now it seems like things have sunken back into a pre-9/11, State Dept, useless diplomacy, silence on freedom issues, capitulation to the Dems (Sandy Berger, anyone?), Saudi expansion quagmire. In the true sense of the word.

I give him credit for staying firm on Iraq, but like Ralph Peters in his latest column, I’m starting to wonder what our long-term strategy and objectives are, if we even have them?

On illegal immigration, it seems that Bush has always been an open borders, North American Union type. He’s not alone in this. In fact, most of our government (Dems and Repubs) agree. But his groveling to corrupt Mexican politicians and insulting Americans who care about American sovereignty is pretty sickening to watch.

Mostly, it just feels like we have a leadership vacuum at the top. Maybe that’s why everyone’s so obsessed with the 2008 election...

JK:

I think y’all are being too hard on Bush. As someone else pointed out (Augusto, I think), he’s stuck to his principles more than any president since at least Reagan. Unless you take an extreme “buck stops here” view, I don’t think he should be blamed for the 2006 election debacle--that was really the fault of the Republicans in Congress. And given that he now has to deal with a Democrat-controlled Congress, with Republicans less principled than he who are ready to pull the rug out from under him, I think he’s hanging in there.

As for immigration, since I largely agree with Bush, I don’t have a problem with him there either. I think the anti-immigration people are erroneously lumping together two separate issue: border security, and the number of people we should allow to come in legally. We can and should have stronger border security, but still allow more people who want to come here to work to do so. So I side with the WSJ/Jack Kemp wing of the Republican party, and I’m really saddened that much of the party is starting to sound more like Pat Buchanan and Lou Dobbs. Sorry if that sounds unfair, but I think it’s a big mistake for Republicans to go in that direction, and to weaken Bush even further by attacking him on this.

C

Thank you, JK, for your support and defense of President Bush. I admire President Bush very very much, he is a man of Integrity and Morality, and those are very high qualities. He’s such a gentleman - he attacks policies not people. those are qualities I wish I possessed and to be so soft spoken too.

I think alot of people have been so critical of President Bush can we even begin to imagine what this man is going through. people in this country and the world thinks he’s a bigger terrorists than bin laden. I’m around these kind of people alot - I live in these kind of neighbourhoods and its very unfair for President Bush to be knocked down so much.

People claim President Bush is destroying the Republican party which to me is such a joke. Its the Reagan Conservatives thats destroying the party with their anti-immigrant stance, and shamefully thats not what Ronald Reagan stood for. Reagan remembered that America showed kindness to his forefathers by letting them come through Ellis Island. Its seems like the Pat Buchanans, Newt Gingrichs, Laura Ingrahams and alot of other Reagan Conservatives have forgotten. I’m not against anybody coming here for a better life. The Republican party is going to pay big time for not backing President Bush on this immigration reform. Illegal immigrants become legal immigrants who become citizens who then become voters and when they do they will remember who showed them kindness and shamefully it has not been been Conservatives.

President Bush I would say this to you go ahead and ask for full amnesty. For those of you against amnesty or the immigration reform bill its possible to love your country and still have a heart at the same time. I like when President Bush says that these people should be treated with respect and decency. I also believe history will be kinder to President George W Bush.

CS:

Well, we can agree to disagree on Bush. But to set the record straight on illegal immigration, it’s not just some fringe of the Republican party that’s in favor of securing our borders and facilitating LEGAL immigration rather than the chaotic situation that currently exists. It’s a majority of Americans, both Republican and Democrat.

Unless our politicians (Bush included) acknowledge this reality and first deal with border enforcement, Americans are going to continue to be unhappy with any so-called comprehensive immigration bill that’s put forward. Beyond the unfairness of asking citizens to foot the bill for non- citizens and rendering American citizenship meaningless by according all the same rights to illegals, at the end of the day, it’s about American sovereignty. A nation that can’t control its borders and that has given up on fostering citizenship will cease to be a nation. It’s an inevitability and defending Bush won’t make that go away.

RB:

Well said. And why do some people think that building several thousand miles of fence is the engineering equivalent of going to the moon? It’s just a stupid fence.

BH:

I have policy huge disagreements with the President, specifically in immigration and in fiscal policy, but in living memory I don’t remember any president other president so willing to ignore polls and acted on his own convictions.

I’m not sure that this makes him a good president, but as a human being, he ranks very high on my list.

Politically I think he underestimated the media’s ability to high-jack, distort, and misrepresent his agenda. He also overestimated the center which, like Andrew Sullivan, are full of sunshine patriots.

AOA:

Yeah, his refusal from governing by the polls is one of his best traits!

BL:

I’m not against anybody coming here for a better life. The Republican party is going to pay big time for not backing President Bush on this immigration reform. Illegal immigrants become legal immigrants who become citizens who then become voters and when they do they will remember who showed them kindness and shamefully it has not been been Conservatives.

I agree. If anything, Bush senses the unstoppable tide and is trying to use it instead of fight it.

Throughout history, governments that try to fight a popular economic demand fail miserably, and the fact is, we have a popular demand for cheap labor.

Artificial interference in a market, even an illegal market, like narcotics, always skews prices but never eliminates the market.

Just think, for a minute, what would happen if enforcement on illegal immigration was tightened to the point where an illegal immigrant was 10 x more likely to be caught and deported. (That word, deported, is part of why we fail. It is too close to the Spanish word for sports, implying it is a game!)

Here are the steps.

1) With fewer low price immigrants, employers must fill gaps with higher paid Americans. 2) Where doing so raises prices above what the market will bear, the employer will NOT be providing groovy new high wage jobs, he will simply be out of business. Americans will simply choose to have less landscaping done. 3) But where the market can bear it, prices- and wages- will rise.

Now the catch:

When prices and wages rise, the differential profit between what a business (or independent worker, like a nanny) can earn with low paid immigrant labor vs high paid native labor rises!

In other words, if wages for fruit pickers double, the profit advantage in hiring immigrants doubles!

The increased profit creates increased demand.

The increased demand increases the wages an illegal immigrant will receive. All straight out of Adam Smith, people.

So now, back in Mexico, in the year 2012: Juan and Maria look across the border. Since 2007, their chances of getting caught and deported have risen dramatically- but so have the wages they can expect if they succeed! Despite the increased security, then, the increased reward makes a more powerful incentive to beat that security! No net change in immigration.

Illegal Immigrants, lured by increased wages, find ways around increased border security (crafty, desperate, opportunists vs government bureaucrats, where do you think Vegas would set the odds?) and the whole system settles into a new Nash equilibrium as inflation, created by the higher costs and wages, negates the higher wages. 2012 then looks exactly like 2007, except that Americans spend more in taxes to create more security the immigrants have to outsmart.

Unless the demand is reduced, no amount of government meddling will shut off the flow. It does not work with alchohol or marijauna, and it will not work with labor. And a reduction in demand is a reduction in goods and services consumed- ie, a reduction in standard of living. So the only way to shut off the flow is to make us poorer. Which accomplishes what, exactly?

I suggest, in the meantime, we Americanize the Empanada, like we did to the Hot Dog. And if our language gets some Spanish infiltration, who cares? It’s not like we’re speaking Old English when we say a Cowboy saw a Coyote in the Canyon. English has been absorbing langauges for a thousand years, why stop it now?

In closing, a recent anecdote from a favorite local bodega of mine:

Customer to other customer, pointing at food. “They got Spanish food here.”

Irked (but playful) Domincan woman who makes the food. “It’s not Spanish! We are Latino. Spanish is from Spain. Latino is from the Bronx.”

MM:

I’ve been trying to ignore this immigration “crisis,” but I have to ask - what specific events have prompted so many people to be so concerned about immigration? Millions of illegals have crossed the border, but what actual grevious (and massive, given their numbers) damage have they caused?

The state department’s Visa Express program was responsible for allowing some of Saudis who carried out the act of war that was 9/11 into the country, but those Saudis entered the country legally. Most of the various local jihadis and ‘sudden jihad syndrome’ types entered the country legally. Our government is currently encouraging thousands of Saudi students to enter the country. If current trends hold, and if new laws are passed, most of the people who will commit local acts of war/terrorism in the future will probably be legal immigrants. Illegal immigrants who commit acts of picking strawberries and working long hours for low pay will probably be kept out.

CS:

Several of the Fort Dix terrorist plotters were illegals and crossed over the border. Thousands of OTM’s (other than Mexicans, as the Border Patrol calls ‘em) cross our porous border each year. Who knows who they are?

Other than that, you might read some of the material at the CIS and FAIR sites for stats on crime and illegal immigration, as well as the cost to taxpayers. Here are a few links:

The Illegal-Alien Crime Wave

Immigration’s Impact on the U.S.

Costs of immigration

Then of course, there’s the prospect of living in a society with a huge unassimilated underclass (sort of like Saudi Arabia) and the erosion of U.S. citizenship (why bother becoming a citizen anymore?) and sovereignty.

BH:

Basically what you are asking is why bother with Mexicans slipping over the Rio Grande if we are so sloppy with other portals for getting into the country? Good question. I would argue that both problems need to be addressed since they constitute serious security holes. IMHO, the border problem is more worrisome because it is clearly the easier way of transporting illegal ordnance within our country.

MM:

You’re right, both problems need to be addressed. The first issue of illegals slipping over the Rio Grande is a problem - we’re not enforcing our own immigration laws, and we should.

The second issue, of jihadi wannabes arriving legally from known terror-generating nations and subsequently killing Americans, isn’t even acknowledged by our government as a problem.

All sorts of things could be smuggled over our border, but no disasters have yet occurred. For the most part potential workers are all that crosses the Rio Grande.

Under our existing laws, all sorts of dangerous jihadis can enter the country and kill Americans - and resulting disasters have occurred, not once, but many times. If we’re going to be changing immigration laws these laws should be changed first. During wartime, I think the government should practice a kind of triage - treat the emergencies first; minimize the problems that are causing actual damage, then deal with everything else. Legalized jihadis arriving from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are causing actual damage, and should (at the very least) be classified as a problem.

BH:

The sad thing is that if policy were left to a group of earnest and intelligent citizens without an ax to grind, we would be able to come up with a rational policy like what you have suggested in the time that it takes to have a long working lunch. Well, maybe a little longer, but not much.

Probably the biggest adjustment to my outlook post 9/11 has been my reappraisal of how irrational people are. This certainly extends to our “servants” in Washington who presumably have wives, homes, and children in the D.C. area which we all acknowledge is ground zero for a future attack. It’s amazing to me that a gut level of self-preservation hasn’t kicked in for these people, which one would have hoped, would have reduced political chicanery and kept the focus on solving a very important problem.

RB:

Compared to the incredible engineering feats humans have accomplished over the ages, building a fence along the southern border would be child’s play. And so what if it would be expensive? It’s only money, and we’re rich.

JK:

I think you all are way overestimating the value of a fence. Even if it were impregnable, there are so many other ways to get in the country, legally and illegally, that I don’t think it would add that much to our security. I’m not saying we throw in the towel on border security, I just am not convinced that the money spent on a fence couldn’t be more effective in other uses.

AOA:

Money is no problem - I’ve heard last week that the money for a great deal of the fence is already appropriated and is waiting only on the will of the government to start building it.

EPA:

To me ‘fence’ is a symbolic word. Fine by me if it’s Cyberdyne Systems automated Alienvapowacker carried on predators and there’s nary a chain link in sight.
 
We have to have some way to secure the borders. Even incremental improvements in preventing the ‘legally illegal’ means of those who mean us harm entrance here would enhance the attractiveness of ‘walking’ across the border at Pittsburgh, New Hampshire, or near Richford Vt (which might be a foreign nation anyway). It’s 100 miles of woods.

If there is a terrorist attack, and the culprit is shown to have come across the border, the MAX cost of the fence will be CHEAP next to the dollars they will be THROWING at the families. The whole thing IS RIDICULOUS.
 
BW:

Even for no other reason than to force the country of Mexico to work hard on making their country worth staying in, we should seal that border and seal it tight.

It may not be quite so sophisticated as engineering a voyage to the moon, but to make it work anything close to 100% of the time is rather challenging and very expensive, especially if you want to minimize the ongoing expense of having people on the ground all along the way to police it. So, with all due respect, it cannot just be a “stupid fence”, it needs to be a very smart, very thick, very tall wall. Like China’s but with cool electronics.

But without hardening security at our ports and coasts by several orders of magnitude, it is almost a silly proposal.

Me: Michael van der Galien’s response to the Cohen op-ed was to come up with a new label: neolibercon. Yeah, that’s the (Giuliani) ticket!