Now, there’s so much media conventional wisdom that’s wrong, and one of the things that was forever wrong during the amnesty bill debate was, from the Republican side, they said, “We have got to show these people that we care about them and they’re the backbone of America because we’ve gotta get these votes. We’re alienating these Hispanics and it’s not going to be good.”

That’s what the whole thing was about, anyway: the pursuit of votes by both parties. So the conventional wisdom almost always is wrong, and this story yesterday gave evidence of that, of how these people came out and said, “We’re voting Republican.” They resent all the illegals and all of the efforts to make them legal without having to go through the process that the people who have gone through it have had to endure.

They resent it, and they’re voting Republican.

They’re registering to vote as Republicans.

Now, obviously, they are not as many naturalized citizens here as there are illegal immigrants. But it does turn things on its head,

The two big issues in the general election next year are going to be taxes and illegal immigration. The Democrats are wrong on both sides.

They’re not quite yet up to speed, but they’re getting there on just how precarious their position on illegal immigration is.

New York Post: On Thursday, “Hillary Clinton came under fire yesterday from immigration supporters for her flip-flop on allowing illegal aliens to obtain driver’s licenses. On Wednesday Clinton stunned advocates by announcing that, as president, she would not support giving licenses to illegals, after indicating recently that she favored the move.”

Somebody needs to tell Mrs. Clinton that presidents have nothing to do with driver’s licenses. Those are done by the states. So whether she supports it or doesn’t support it or is going to demand it or stop it — she can’t do either.

Look, it’s very simple.

If you’re going to give an illegal person a legal document, which is what a driver’s license is, then you are, by virtue of that, making them legal.

A driver’s license is a legal document.

If you give one to an illegal, then you’ve just made them worthless.

Show me a country that has not had an interest in who gets into it. Every country that has borders — and every country does — is worried, except the communist countries which try to keep people in. But everybody tries to control who gets into their country.

If you don’t have borders, you don’t have a country.

The Democrats don’t care about any of this. This was simply a move for illegal immigrants to get driver’s licenses so they could register to vote.

Democrats want and need those votes in the states and throughout the country.

The point here is that the Democrats clearly want illegals to become citizens by fiat, by waving of a magic wand.

Where everybody thought the Republicans were going to end up being in trouble on this, with each passing day with this story in the news, it’s the Democrats who are learning that they have a much bigger problem here with this issue than Republicans do.

AMERICA VS PANDERING VIA FRENCH PRESIDENT SARKOZY

Sarkozy spoke spoke November the 7th. He addressed a joint meeting of the House and the Senate.

But I want you, when you read these things, forget that it’s a Frenchman, that’s marvelous and tremendous enough. In fact, don’t forget that.

Ask yourself, “Why, all of a sudden, in a world where we are told that we are hated and we have to rebuild our image, how come pro-American conservative leaders are being elected in all these democracies, like France, like Germany, and a number of other places?”

The Democrats can’t get anything right. They can’t tell you the truth about anything. So do keep in mind that it’s a Frenchman, but also I want, as you read the following, ask yourself how you would feel if an American presidential candidate of any party happened to be saying these things.

SARKOZY (via translator): To the millions of men and women who came from every country in the world and who, with their own hands, their intelligence, and their hearts, built the greatest nation in the world, America did not say, “Come, and everything will be given to you.” Rather, she said, “Come, and the only limits to what you will be able to achieve will be those of your own courage, your boldness, and your talent.”

… “The America that we love throughout the world embodies this extraordinary ability to grant each and every person a second chance, another chance — because, in America, failure is never the last word. There is always another chance. Here, in your country, on this soil, both the humblest and the most illustrious citizens alike know that nothing is owed to them and that everything has to be earned. That is what constitutes the moral value of America.

There were Democrats applauding this, but they would never say it, and not enough Republicans say it. Not enough citizens realize it anymore. I heard these and I was practically standing out of my chair here the first time I heard them.
SARKOZY: America liberated us, and this is an eternal debt we owe America.
Every time, whenever an American soldier falls somewhere in the world, I think of what the American army did for France. I think of them, and I am sad as one is saddened to lose a member of one’s family.

You will not hear… I do not like saying this, but this is the TRUTH.

You will not hear an elected Democrat speak this way of the US military today.

A Frenchman! By the way, he’s smart. He has every reason to think this and feel it. It just stuns me that there is so much understanding of the greatness of purpose and the reason this country is what it is outside our borders, than there is inside among our elected officials.

SARKOZY (via translator): We need France to be stronger. I am determined to carry through with the reforms that my country has put off for all too long. I will not turn back. I will implement all of them because France has turned back for all too long. I have come to present to you today a France that comes out to meet America, to renew the covenant of friendship and alliance that Washington and Lafayette sealed in Yorktown. Together let us be true to their memories. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I say this to you on behalf of the French people: “Long live the United States of America! Long live France! Long live French-American friendship!”

Now, how can this even be when the Democrats and the media are out talking about how we’re hated in the world, and we’ve lost our standing and we’ve lost our reputation?

When you read that, did you imagine how you’d feel if some American candidate, either party, were saying things like this about this country?

Why has it become so hard for America? You know why?

Because of pandering!

We’ve gotten to the point where, “People are hurting, people are suffering, and they need their leaders to understand that.” So, our leaders run around and talk about, “I understand you’re hurting, and I’m representing ‘change,’ and I’m going to make sure that your pain is going away, so vote for me,” blah, blah, blah.

So you end up pandering to people just to make them think that you care about them, when the key to unlocking misery is inside each and every one of us — and it’s the person in your life that can show you how to do that that becomes the best teacher you ever had.

That was one of the multitudinous things about Ronald Reagan that made him able to connect with people.

Resource:

National Review Online: Denying Alliance; Democratic Candidates Love to Attack Bush’s Foreign Policy – Charles Krauthammer

“Former President Clinton on Monday compared Republican criticism of his wife’s position on driver’s license for illegal immigrants to the ads that helped sink John Kerry’s White House hopes in 2004. Tim Russert’s question and the Republican reaction is the equivalent of Mrs. Clinton being swiftboated.”

He was talking to the American Postal Workers Union at a convention, and he said,

“I had the feeling at the end of that debate that we’re about to get into cutesy land again. But I gotta tell you something. It’s fine for Hillary and all the other Democrats to discuss Governor Spitzer’s plan, but not in 30 seconds. You can’t do this in sound bites. It’s just too complicated for sound bites. You can’t explain this in sound bites.”

So here is Mrs. Clinton’s husband running to the rescue once again to try to bail her out.

There’s nothing to explain in a sound bite or not. She flip-flopped on the answer and she ended up blowing it big time by saying we should have passed the amnesty bill!

Driver’s licenses for illegal aliens, 77% of the public oppose it.

This is one of these issues, immigration — 3 reasons to Worry?

Chicago Sun-Times, by Steve Huntley:
“3 Events of Past Week Give Democrats a Reason to Worry — First, Hillary Clinton had a bad night in the Democratic presidential debate in Philadelphia. She was defensive, cold and harsh-sounding, mouthed position papers, and gave muddling, confusing and contradictory answers to questions, in effect trying to take both sides of an issue. That cold, calculating, triangulating image is the reason she has high negatives.” Can we talk about immigration? It’s a huge, huge reason Democrats ought to be worrying.

The second reason Steve Huntley gives is “Barack Obama laid out his foreign policy views toward Iran in an interview with the New York Times,” and said he’d have an open relationship with them. This did not go over well.

And the third reason, “last week’s report on war casualties showed that the news from Iraq is turning positive.”

Iraq’s going well, Obama is an appeaser to Iran, and Hillary’s biggest vulnerability from the debate was her attitude and her character. Three events the past week give Democrats reason to worry.

Well, let’s add two more. Their position on climate change is a deadly one once people find out what it’s going to cost ’em, and Mrs. Clinton‘s made it clear where Democrats are on illegal immigration.

When you have 77% of the people in the country opposing illegal immigration driver’s licenses for illegals. Clinton can come along and say “hey, you know, it’s too complicated. You can’t put this in a sound bite. You can’t sound bite that answer. You people aren’t nuanced enough to understand this like we do.”

That isn’t going to sell with anybody. Tell people they’re stupid? That’s really a way to win ’em over. “It’s too complicated for you to understand. I would love explain it to you, but…” it’s not complicated at all.

They’re trying to make it complicated because they’re trying to keep themselves in power.

I think these people are just starting to realize here that there is a problem that this woman has when she is forced to answer substantive questions to which slogans and pandering will not work.

Then in Cedar Rapids, they’re out in Iowa getting ready for the Hawkeye Cauci.

“The battle against global warming means big economic opportunities as well as challenges for the U.S., Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday, touting her energy proposals as she campaigned in Iowa. ‘For this generation, climate change is our space race,’ said Clinton, speaking in a cavernous factory with giant wind turbines in the background.”

She said, “Global warming hits particularly hard at the poor. One in four low-income families have already missed a mortgage or rent payment because of rising energy costs.”

Global warming.

She has just linked the mortgage credit crisis to global warming.

Does she think we are this stupid? Yes.

Chicago Sun-Times: “Obama Turns Up Heat as He Targets Hillary — With her lead so strong, he decides he has to get tougher.”

This guy is so boring, he couldn’t turn up the heat up if he was on fire, we found that at the debate the other night.

Washington Times, Rasmussen Report: “Voters oppose driver’s licenses for illegal aliens by a nearly five-to-one margin. As immigration politics explode into the presidential race…”

By the way, can you remember when we were debating the amnesty bill way back when in the summer, and the proponents were worried, “We’ve gotta get this done fast! We gotta get this done fast! We can’t let normal politics get in the way of this. We’ve gotta get this done fast to solve the problem,” because they wanted to keep it out of any reelection campaign.

Illegal immigration to the inside-the-Beltway bunch — the Washington, New York, Boston corridor, the axis, Northeastern elites — why, they firmly believe, “Why, people in here, great American tradition, immigration, blah, blah, blah, can’t be racists. We can’t be nativists and so forth.” So they think their view is the dominant view, or should be, and so anybody outside the Beltway that doesn’t subscribe, “Ah, they’re just a bunch of rednecks, a real loud, small number of people.”

“Seventy-seven percent of the adults surveyed opposed making driver’s licenses available to illegal aliens, while just 16 percent supported the idea.”

It doesn’t matter if you ask ’em, “Well, should it be because of security?“

The Politico, by Roger Simon: “‘Legal or Not, Immigrants Must Drive.’

Bruce Morrison, immigration expert: “It is a very difficult problem with no simple answer. So when it comes to solving the problem, we take to our respective corners and call each other names. This is politics in the 21st century.“

It’s just too complicated to explain it!

Well, why do they have to drive? I’ll tell you why they have to drive:

So Democrats can register them to vote!

That’s it.

That is what it’s all about.

Resources:

• AP: Clinton Defends Wife on Licenses
• Newsweek: The Hillary Paper Chase: 3,022,030 Documents to Go
• Chicago Sun-Times: 3 Events of Past Week Give Democrats a Reason to Worry
• Washington Times: Poll Finds 77% Oppose Licenses for Illegals
• AP: Clinton Sees Opportunity in Climate Woes

New Yorkers, New York liberal Democrats, are livid. They are outraged over the decision by Governor Spitzer to pull his driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants plan.

Charlie Rangel at the Spitzer press conference.

RANGEL: There is no question that nobody’s thinking about identifying, deporting, jailing these people. They are part of our economy; they are part of what America was supposed to be and will continue to be. But, somehow, for political reasons, we’ve been able to stigmatize to such a degree that those who challenge the system are being called unpatriotic. There’s no question that we lack the leadership on the national level to change the tone.

You know, Charlie, I tell you, “lack the leadership on the national level to change the tone”?

It seems to me that we have a president who tried to change the tone with you people, and when he tried to change the tone with you people, all you did was stomp on him.

He led this issue, Charlie. You Democrats stood on the sidelines letting the president take the bullets on this from the American people. You didn’t want to get involved because you wanted the Republican Party divided over this.

Now that it’s boomeranged, as almost everything’s done lately on the Democrat side, now, all of a sudden, you’re absent leadership on this? What about Senator Clinton? What about Senator Schumer? What about you?

What about President Bush? Where were you joining him on this, Charlie, if it’s so important?

If these people are the backbone of America — and, by the way, that’s a stretch. Illegal Immigrants to America have never been, the backbone of the country, the melting pot.

These comments that these guys are making make it clear, do they not, that this is purely a political partisan issue to them. It is those guys who are making this political. They are making it partisan. Those of us who oppose all of this are simply standing for the rule of law, and American tradition; American exceptionalism.

Charlie Rangel, Spitzer, Hillary Clinton, any number of Democrats, are doing just the opposite.

They’re willing to wreck the country’s foundations, traditions, and institutions regardless, as long as it gives them more voters and a greater chance to win elections.

Gary Ackerman, a congressman from New York, also at the Spitzer press conference:

ACKERMAN: This might not have been the exact right plan, but the governor is on to something, and that is that we have to really be attentive and try to solve this problem. Those people who just want to use the jingoistic terms that are popular, round ’em all up, put ’em on planes and send ’em home, I challenge them. Call the immigration commissioner of this country, tell ’em that you’ve just caught an illegal immigrant, and you have ’em hog-tied here right in front of the US capitol, come and collect ’em, and I guarantee you no one is going to show up because they don’t know what to do with them, and that’s the problem.

Well, you guys are the ones in Congress, for crying out loud, Ackerman, Rangel, all these people are in Congress, and you’re blaming who?

It’s like you guys are spectators? You’re just standing around watching all this? You have no impact on it? You coulda done any number of things about this. By the way, who is it that these people are referring to when they keep talking about rounding ’em up and flying ’em home on airplanes? Nobody was ever talking about deportation.

We were talking about border security first. Get that done and stop the flow. Then we’ll deal with the problem of the 12 to 20, whatever millions are here. But if you don’t do the border first, then nobody is going to take anybody seriously on this issue because we’ve been here and done that, 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli Act. I don’t want to relive all this, but I’ll tell you what, it’s going to be an issue that will be predominant throughout the presidential campaign.

And it’s about time. This issue should have always been part of the presidential campaign, and now it is.

When a person — usually a liberal, or a member of the Media — says that the 2006 November election was about withdrawing from Iraq, is that person a liar?

Is that person a manipulator?

Let me ask it this way.

When a journalist accepts that the 2006 election was all about Iraq, is he or she uninformed?

Is he or she a pawn? Is he or she an anti-war activist? Or just a rotten journalist?

I ask this question: Can truth trump what the Nazis called “the big lie,” or we call “truth by repetition”?

If 72% of the people want no amnesty for illegals and no driver’s licenses for them, and 72% of the people want us out of Iraq, how come we’re not in Iraq, and the illegals don’t get their driver’s licenses or amnesty?

Because the polls showing 72% want us out of Iraq are not accurate. The 2006 election was not about that.

I looked at the exit poll data from 2006. Iraq wasn’t the first issue. It wasn’t the second issue. It wasn’t the third issue mentioned by voters that was most important to them. It was the fourth issue, and it wasn’t necessarily about leaving Iraq.

It was about the progress or lack of it in Iraq.

It did not specify, “Yes, the fourth thing most important to me is to get out of Iraq.” What was stated was, was about the progress, or lack of it.

Now, this is only common sense.

The Democrats have offered 40 resolutions to get us out of Iraq. They have lost them all. Well, they won one, but President Bush vetoed it, and they didn’t have the votes to override. They’re 40-and-one, and they’re back for more. That’s why they want to pull these troops out of there now, do whatever, screw up the funding, do whatever they’re going to do.

They’re serious about it.

But back to the exit polls.

For you pretend journalists out there, for those of you who say you practice journalism, the number one issue on the exit polls in 2006 was corruption.

Corruption! It was earmarks, and corruption by high officials.

The number two issue in exit polls, the economy.

The number three issue in the exit polls was terrorism — and guess what?

The left is doing everything they can to make it harder to deal with terrorists. Did you ever hear a Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi say the 2006 election was all about dealing with terrorism? Did you ever hear them say the 2006 election was all about the economy? Did you ever hear them say it was all about corruption?

No, you hear them say it was all about getting us out of Iraq, and it was not, according to the exit polls.