"Where I get lost is the fact that Dubya has to 'comply' with the cheap labor crowd ...OK, I can sort of buy that (choke) but why the 'path to citizenship'. Is he not aware of what happened to California?"
He doesn't HAVE to. He chooses to. Remember, W was a CEO. He's a businessman, and is very business oriented. He understands the Business Roundtable's arguments as to why they need cheap labor. That is the reason for the guest worker program: it allows as much cheap labor as American industry needs, but at lower wages and without regular US protections. It protects BUSINESS, primarily, because business no longer faces prosecution for hiring cheap foreign labor. Right now, business is engaged in illegal activity, but is not prosecuted for it. Guest worker allows business to get the same cheap labor, but with the threat of prosecution removed.
Why the "path to citizenship"? Because the President is a humanitarian Christian. Millions of people have settled in the US. They don't want to leave. They've bought houses and made their lives here. There's no will to expend the energy needed to uproot and expel all 20 million of them, and so they continue to live in the shadows, exploitable and insecure. W thinks that this is inhumane, and that they need to be regularized. That's why.