Bush woos Republican senators over immigration bill

International Herald Trribune ^ | May 26, 2007 | Sheryl Gay Stolberg

[Hadean]

WASHINGTON: Having won his fight with congressional Democrats on an Iraq war spending bill, President George W. Bush is now waging an equally aggressive battle with Republican senators as he tries to persuade them to support an immigration bill that he hopes will be a signature domestic achievement.

As the Senate debated the immigration measure, Bush spent the past week lobbying behind the scenes to build support for it. A dozen Republican senators, including some of the staunchest opponents of the bill, were summoned to Oval Office meetings to hear the president deliver an impassioned appeal for the legislation.

In return, participants said, they gave Bush an earful about complaints from their constituents.

"He may have this legacy thing in mind - he may think that it's Nixon going to China, that only he can get this done," said Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama. Describing the meeting as positive, Sessions said Bush "took it well" when he told the president pointedly that he did not intend to vote for the measure.

"I think he's made a big mistake," Sessions added. "I think he put himself in a position of weakness by making this something that he desperately wants."

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

>>If you believe as I do that Jimmie Carter is responsible for the deposing of the Shah of Iran and the ascent of the Islamic fascist It ain’t even close. I doubt Carters take on immigration would be palatable to any of us. Jimmie Carter was inept in so many ways that one has to create an entirely new category for him.<<

I agree it would have been better for the Shah to stay in power, although it’s not clear to me how an American president could have prevented his fall. He had a brutal secret police that rivaled Saddam’s, and many innocent people were victims. But both Carter and Bush Junior have left us with tragic burdens that will be terribly difficult to bear in the future.

I am not sure whether the US could have saved the Shah, because the momentum to remove him really came from inside Iran. But Bush’s amnesty adventure was not forced on him — he just wanted to do it.