The American Spectator

David Hogberg’s excursus into omphaloskepsis seeks to determine the answer to the question of whether current conservatism is in crisis. Along with Messrs. Babbin and Tabin, he leads us to believe that our commander-in-chief may have faults, but, still, he is made of the steely stuff of heroes. I dissent. Perhaps we are reading the entrails of different animals, for I am not as laudatory of this president’s performance, not because of Iraq, or legitimate use of wiretaps in the name of national security, but for the fact that with one very minor exception of a throw away sentence, these three gentlemen display a steadfast reluctance to even mention that President Bush’s willingness to seal the border of Iraq directly contradicts…nay contravenes…his unwillingness to seal our southern border from a potential terrorist attack, a violation of his oath to defend and protect these United States. Conservatism in crisis indeed!

In early December, I attended the press conference announcing the Hunter-Goode Bill, a proposal that calls for a wall to be built along the US-Mexican border. Duncan Hunter, a Republican from California, claimed that more than 150,000 people of suspicious origin had entered the U.S. illegally in 2005 alone; nonetheless, neither Hunter nor Goode expects the bill will come out of the Senate looking anything like what they proposed. Even the questionable Sensenbrenner Bill, which passed the House, does not touch two of the three “magnets” that attract illegal aliens to our shores: welfare benefits and birthright citizenship. It’s no secret that the White House will attempt to resolve this House-Senate stalemate by proposing… ready?… a guest worker/amnesty bill early this year. That is why Signor Chertoff, in the name of Homeland Security, has been saddled with the task of selling such an amnesty, although the overwhelming majority of legally present Americans are clearly opposed to it.

Mr. Tabin’s comment that the issue of (illegal) immigration has not (yet) affected the Republican Party will come back to haunt him in 2006. If the unexpected second place showing by Minuteman Jim Gilchrist, who ran strictly on the illegal immigration issue in the recent Republican primary in California is a harbinger of things to come, the White House and Republicans are in for a surprise in the congressional elections this year. Both still refuse to listen to those Republican lady volunteers at the White House who field the telephone calls from disgruntled Americans. They, alone it appears, know the profound depth that this issue has on the American public.