Was Amnesty Bill a Strategery? - VANITY

FR ^ | 6/9/06 | jebeier

[jebeier]

Perhaps this whole Amnesty business is a sublime and supremely cunning strategery.

Now, I know you all may want to dismiss the possibility out of hand, but bear with me for a moment...

By promoting this bill, in one fell swoop President Bush has managed to:

a) Get almost the entire Democrat caucus in the Senate to come out in favor of Amnesty, which is very unpopular,
b) Forever link his old arch-nemesis, John McCain, to this very unpopular bill,
c) Get somewhere close to 80% of Americans to oppose Ted Kennedy, and
d) Kill the possibility of comprehensive immigration reform for the forseeable future.

And all it has cost him is a few points in the public opinion polls, which is irrelevant because he will never run for office again.

Now the Republican field (except John McCain) can run against the President of their own party in 2008 by opposing him on this issue. The 800 pound Iraqi gorrilla has been replaced by a 1600 pound illegal immigration gorilla. And the vast majority of Republicans (besides John McCain) are in a much better position to debate on this issue.

Sarkozy just won in France by running against Chirac, who was the head of his own party. Perhaps the White House has taken that lesson to heart.

If it is strategery, it is exceptionally subtle and devious, and would be a masterpiece. But they really couldn't possibly be that clever, could they?

Or could they? One thing we know about President Bush is that he has a long memory and likes to get even with his enemies. Look at the seven Republican Senators who are going to come out on the down side of this deal:

Graham (R-SC)- Led efforts to extend habeus corpus rights to Guantanamo detainees. Member of Gang of 14

Hagel (R-NE) - Led charges against Iraq, Patriot Act, Rumsfeld, the Surge and Karl Rove

Lugar (R-IN) - Led efforts against intelligence operations against foreign agents in the US

Martinez (R-FL) - Leaked the Schiavo memo, but otherwise does not fit the pattern

McCain (R-AZ) - Back stabbings too numerous to count

Specter (R-PA) - Ditto. From “Scottish Law” onward

Voinovich (R-OH) - Led charge against John Bolton and the Surge

All of these Senators are going to be hurt by taking a position on the wrong side of this issue, and all of them, except Mel Martinez, have been thorns in President Bush’s side for a long, long time.

One has to ask oneself, cui bono? Who benefits? I submit to you that the biggest beneficiary of this debacle is none other than President George W. Bush himself.

[Coldwater Creek]

Rove has more in the brains dept. than most Republicans as well.

[RachelFaith]

Soo... Are you in that 34% that’s still approving of him??

[Proud_texan]

They could not possibly be that out of touch.

Sure they can be that out of touch. Think Harriet Myers. And then when there was a hue and cry we were all sexist. Of course it might be that there's a group they're not out of touch with on this issue...

I've been trying to figure an angle as to why and I've come up with some stuff but the best one is from someone else that offered it here and I think it's far better than anything I've seen.

Paraphrasing a lot of local/state laws are starting to pop up in regards to illegal aliens and there just might be some big company CEOs that are starting to sweat. By granting amnesty to illegals the companies and CEOs effectively get amnesty, too. From that standpoint it's a nifty "solution".

My personal theory was that we're right on the bubble of population replacement. Europe solved it by importing mooselimbs. Japan didn't do anything and is probably going through the first population related depression of modern times.

But if it was the latter you'd think they'd make the case and I haven't heard a word about it so I tend to go with the former.

[WOSG]

Yeah yeah yeah ... I gave up on the meme of “W” the amazing kreskin who would *appear* to do something stupid that ended up working well ... oh, around the time I figured out the WMDs would never be found in Iraq. if it works for the good of conservatives it will be due to the work of others, not Bush.

meanwhile:
- RNC and RNSC contributions are plummetting
- advisors say that immigration bill could cost us *another* 5 senate seats
- Reid and Pelosi are so incompetent/brilliant they have no fingerprints on any bill at all, so it remains a “BUSH BILL” and not a Democrat bill in voter’s eyes
- Bush’s popularity plummets to Nixon-74-ish levels, leaving him zero capital to do ANYTHING. A lamest duck.