In an obvious reference to the Minuteman Project volunteers, this is what a leftist reporter asked George Bush yesterday: “President Bush, I wanted to ask you about your opinion about those people who are hunting migrant people along the border.”
If the reporter had at least pretended to be a journalist and gathered facts instead of relying on what other leftists were saying, he would have found this on the Minuteman Project web site:
We will seal the border by our presence, but will not violate anyone’s civil rights, and will not abuse anyone from any country. By legal means we will observe ILLEGAL immigrants on trails heading north. We will alert border patrol to the location of illegals, and wait for USBP to come and pick them up. We will follow illegal aliens from a distance and continue spotting them until authorities answer our cell phone and/or back-pack radio calls. All spotting, calls for assistance, and the response from the appropriate authorities will be chronicled and provided to any media representative.
I say illegal aliens have no civil rights in the sense that we do, but I won’t quibble.
This is how our conservative Christian president answered: “I’m against vigilantes in the United States of America. I’m for enforcing law in a rational way. That’s why you got a Border Patrol, and they ought to be in charge of enforcing the border.” (Source)
Such an answer would be reasonable if the volunteers were vigilantes. Shame on you, Mr. Bush. Mexico’s president Vicente Fox probably stood there smiling, pleased that his American pal is trained so well.
Facts are inconvenient sometimes, especially when you want to grandstand. But the journalist gets a pass, sort of. The problem is George Bush, not leftist reporters or Fox. If Bush had been armed with facts, he wouldn’t have sounded like such a clueless, fawning oaf in front of these people. For him to even insinuate that his fellow countrymen — Americans taking time out of their busy lives to do the job he refuses to do —- are “hunting down” border jumpers and breaking the law makes me sick. I’m sure Bush or his people have seen the volunteers’ web site and read the statement I just posted. Why not tell the reporter what they’re really about? Educate them. Why feed into leftist lies?
Anytime you have a group of white men wanting to gather for any reason, charges of “Racists!” start flying everywhere. Folks are real paranoid. Implicit in any discussion of the Minuteman Project by liberals is that they’re racists who want to kill Mexicans. Like many Americans, including those afraid to speak up, they’re simply fed up with the scourge of illegal immigration and are alarmed by its detrimental effects. If you’re an unbeliever, I recommend you read FOX News’s five-part series on immigration. It makes me sick.
I’m not the only one who’s sick. Polipundit, whoever he is, says this in reference to Bush’s response to the reporter:
This from a president whose administration refuses to fund the Border Patrol. This from a president whose Department of “Homeland Security†actively refuses to enforce immigration laws. This from a president who has proposed a massive amnesty for the millions of illegal aliens who’ve broken our immigration laws. This from a president who has allowed illegal immigration to increase after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
I hate all politicians. Malkin’s upset, too.
Update: Understatement of the day: Bush Immigration Reform Faces Uphill Fight.
Update II: I’ve slowly come to the shocking realization that George Bush wants open borders with Mexico. It took me this long to admit it.
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…”
And your criminals, too.
