Amnesty bill could derail McCain’s train

Which may explain his abject confusion about whether he supports amnesty for 20 million illegal aliens. When you’re 71 years old, short-term memory loss can be part of the package, along with the delusion that Wilfred Brimley’s endorsement is big with the iPod generation.

Last spring McCain and the hero of Chappaquiddick, with the help of La Raza, put together a grandiose scheme to grant amnesty to millions upon millions of foreign invaders. It was so outrageous they refused to hold hearings on it. The bill went down in flames, twice, and so did McCain’s campaign for almost a year.

Now McCain is back, sort of. But his “amnesty” bill is still political poison. So when he’s called on it, as he was by Mitt Romney Saturday night at Saint Anselm College, he speaks with forked tongue:

“It’s not amnesty. And for you to describe it as you do in the attack ads, my friend, you can spend your whole fortune on these attack ads, but it still won’t be true.”

You can understand his hysteria. It’s now or never for the grumpy old man. If he wins tomorrow, he goes on to Michigan and South Carolina. If McCain loses he heads straight to the dogtrack. Wonderland, here’s Johnnnnnny!

Amnesty could kill him. Nobody remembers the Keating Five scandal. But amnesty? Have you been to a hospital emergency room lately? Or read the police log in the Nashua Telegraph?

This is why McCain so loathes Mitt Romney. Romney is calling him on it, and McCain, who has never been too tightly wrapped, is about three 30-second spots on WMUR away from a Caine Mutiny-like meltdown.

Did you see what happened at the debate Saturday night, when he tried to zing Mitt on flip-flopping? Before McCain got to the punch line he began giggling - always a bad sign. When he delivered it - “I agree, you are the candidate of change” - hardly anybody laughed, and then just out of embarrassment.

Here’s one of the McCain money quotes on amnesty, from the Tuscon Citizen in 2003: “I think we can set up a program where amnesty is extended to a certain number of people.”

That was McCain then. This is McCain now: “The fact is that I’ve never supported amnesty.”

Even his greatest supporter, the Manchester Union-Leader, said in an editorial that the Kennedy-McCain bill “would encourage border jumping.”

One of the more odious parts of the bill was the insistence that illegals should receive Social Security credit for work they did while in the country illegally. Illegals can’t have a Social Security number, so there are only two ways they can have a job here. They can work under the table, which is tax fraud, or they can steal a citizen’s number, which is identity theft.

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) put in an amendment to stop the illegals from benefiting from their felonies. McCain, along with Obama and Hillary, voted to kill it.

To which Ensign responded: “There was a felony they were committing, and now they can’t be prosecuted. That sounds like amnesty to me.”

This morning McCain runs neck-and-neck in New Hampshire with Romney. But what may doom him is that the independents he’d been counting on to pull a Republican ballot to vote for him, as they did in 2000, are now going to vote on the Democrat side, to finish off the Clinton machine. Like Hillary, McCain was caught flat-footed. He never saw Barack Obama coming.

Both of them must feel like Bobby Vinton and Connie Francis and Chubby Checker in January 1964. One day, they were on the top of the Billboard charts, just like they had been for years, and the next day . . . the Beatles. From the penthouse to the outhouse.

FRED THOMPSON is the best person to lead this country. He is a true conservative and has been his entire life. All one has to do is check his record to see this.

During my time in the Army as an Intelligence Analyst, I personally served under both Presidents Carter and Reagan. Without argument, President Reagan was the best commander-in-chief a military person could ever have served under. Fred Thompson possesses the same qualities and vision as President Reagan in that he is strong on national defense and sees a dire need to secure our borders and control immigration.

I can think of no better person to lead this country and fix the problems we have. He is the only candidate from either party who has specific and detailed plans on border security and immigration reform; revitalization of America’s armed forces; saving and protecting Social Security; and tax relief and economic growth. These are detailed on his Web site at www.fred08.com . I challenge you to find any other candidate who has laid out specific plans to fix anything.

Fred Thompson has published his first principles, some of which are mentioned above. In addition to those, he strongly believes in individual liberty, personal responsibility, limited government, federalism, traditional American values, the rule of law and is a strong proponent of the Second Amendment — all concepts established during the birth of our country and documented in our Constitution.

Again, try to find any candidate who has laid out their plans to “fix” this country. You will find they all speak in vague and abstract terms on their plans.

For those who have heard Fred Thompson speak, you will usually hear him say that the Fred Thompson you see today is the same Fred Thompson you saw yesterday and is the same Fred Thompson you will see tomorrow. He stands by his principles and values and doesn’t shift his positions based on polls or public opinion; in other words, he doesn’t say what the voters want to hear just to get elected, but remains steadfast on his views and convictions.

During his time in the Senate he focused on three areas: to lower taxes, strengthen national security and expose waste in the federal government. Fred Thompson has foreign policy experience, having served as member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Senate Intelligence committees.

As chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, he opened the investigation in 1997 on the Chinese government’s attempt to influence American policies and elections, and this investigation identified connections with the Clinton administration (documented in the committee’s report).

As a member of the Finance Committee, he worked tirelessly to enact three major tax-cut bills. Fred Thompson remains steadfast and even though a person may not agree with all his views and he understands some may disagree with him, you can count on him to be consistent and unwavering.

Don’t be fooled by his laid back approach and what critics call his “laziness.” As a former assistant U.S. attorney, he earned a reputation as a tough prosecutor and he possesses the toughness this country needs in order to tackle today’s and tomorrow’s issues.

I ask that you take a hard look at what this country needs, then take a hard look at all the other candidates’ views, policies, their records and their track record on consistency. Fred Thompson possesses integrity, loyalty, commitment, energy and decisiveness, all traits of an effective leader, and will emerge as the best person to take this country boldly forward.

Typical “drive-by” tactics from the dinosaur media. When you can’t find actual facts to support your position/candidate you resort to sliming the opposition. Mr. Carr, fortunately, seems to have a grasp of the situation.

McCain is a true military hero of this country and as such he does deserve respect. That said, he is no more competent to be President (or a U.S. Senator for that matter) than MacArthur was way back when. I’ve always thought a certain portion of the Arizona population had rocks in their heads for electing him to represent their state.

He has age “issues” as far as I’m concerned AND he has admitted anger issues. I think we can all agree the Presidency is no place for a man who loses his temper at the drop of the sombrero.

McCain IS proposing amnesty for illegal aliens. He either hasn’t listened to the words flowing from his own mouth, or he expects America to accept his amnesty plan.

In defense of his plan, he continues to reiterate he wouldn’t want to have to call a soldier serving in Iraq to tell him or her, that his or her mother has been deported. This defense gripes the tar out of me. Am I somehow to accept that of the 12 to 20 million illegal aliens, all the females have a son or daughter serving in our military? Just the fact that he always mentions “mother” tells me that he’s playing on the sympathy or others. Someone had better trump McCain’s bleeding heart hand. He’s playing it to win amnesty for all illegal aliens, not the very few with a child serving in our military.

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