 |
|
Nov. 6, 2009
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How
to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Nov. 5, 2009
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking
Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker
With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater?
With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change
With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Oct. 29, 2009
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our
Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
JWisdom.com Why what we wear
impacts who we are
With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love
With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks
With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness
with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really?
By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A
Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious
By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things
By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices
By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 15, 2009
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
|
| |
Jewish World Review
June 15, 2007
/ 29 Sivan, 5767
Is ‘decency’ enough for citizenship?
By
Diana West
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Now that the president has tried to revive the comatose Senate amnesty bill, at least as big a question as whether he can bring it back to life is why on earth he would want to?
Sure, he wants a win because he hasn't had one lately. Sure, he wants a (gulp) legacy because it's that clock-ticking time in his second term. But why this particular attempted win, which his political base sees only as betrayal? Why this hoped-for legacy, which would eliminate him from any conservative pantheon?
"It's a very emotional issue." That's what the president says by way of describing the acid turmoil his "comprehensive" immigration reform push has caused, particularly among conservatives. He's right on one level, but I get the impression he makes the point to dismiss his opponents' objections as volcanic eruptions of feeling, rather than legitimate and reasonable arguments.
At the same time, immigration reform is a very emotional issue for Bush himself. Too emotional. When it comes to illegal aliens — in particular, illegal aliens from Mexico — the man seems to be governed by his gut. And that, of course, is no way to govern.
I say this having gone back over the immigration file that has piled up during this administration. A strong emotional thread connecting Bush to the issue comes through stories about his beloved Mexican-born housekeeper/nannies, and through stories about his political associates with Mexican roots, such as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, or campaign aide Israel Hernandez, "whom," Newsweek noted last year, "Bush hired after hearing his family story."
Bush just loves those family stories. No one needs a shrink's couch to imagine the inspiring effect of immigrant success stories on an Establishment scion like Bush, who, while he may have had to struggle for his Texas twang, never had to struggle for much else — at least anything essential. From the big chair on the hacienda porch, with that "sense of Southwestern noblesse" Newsweek's Howard Fineman fancifully attributes to Bush's possible notion of himself as a hacendado (landowner), the president's admiration seems to know few bounds. "When you grow up in Texas like ... I did," Bush recently told McClatchy Newspapers, "you recognize the decency and hard work and humanity of Hispanics."
A lovely testimonial, but hardly a criterion on which to offer amnesty to some 12 to 20 million illegal aliens, even if they are mainly Hispanic. Half the world's population are undoubtedly just as decent, hard-working and humane, but that doesn't qualify the non-Hispanic billions (who haven't broken innumerable U.S. laws) for citizenship — at least not yet.
But the rosy — better, hazy—view from the hacienda porch doesn't take this in. Instead, Bush not only imagines comprehensively reforming the illegal, mainly Hispanic millions into citizens, but also "assimilating" them into Americans. The president doesn't seem to have noticed that the multicultural states of America long ago junked the "assimilation" process as being "Eurocentric," "racist" and worse. Nope, he's still talking about "this system's capacity to assimilate newcomers" as though it's the Statue of Liberty's birthday — her 50th birthday in 1936. This "capacity to assimilate," he says, "has been one of the great, powerful traditions of America. It works, and it will work this time."
It will? Question from McClatchy: "Do you think we assimilate immmigrants as well as in previous waves?"
Bush's answer: "Absolutely."
Obviously, Bush hasn't ridden a rush-hour bus where no English is spoken, or listened to a business office recording asking "oprima el numero dos." But not even the presidential bubble excuses him from failing to notice the cultural transformation this country has undergone over the past half century. From his inviolate state of oblivion, Bush views "a backlash against newcomers" as being the only conceivable threat to the assimilation process — and more. "I am deeply concerned about America losing its soul," he said, bemoaning the country's opposition to illegal — illegal — immigration. "I am worried that a backlash to newcomers could cause our country to lose its great capacity to assimilate newcomers."
America's soul has been gasping for survival for ages. This has nothing to do with Bush's "backlash" bogeyman—which, frankly, sounds like another slap at Americans who want U.S. sovereignty upheld. Maybe Bush is just being emotional. But it's clear where his emotions lie, and it's not with conservatives. And I don't think they stop at the border, either.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading."
Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Diana West is a columnist and editorial writer for the Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.
Archives
© 2007, Diana West
|
