Divided USA, Divided GOP, Divided Bush-Cheney Website
Craig Nelsen, ProjectUSA, September 1, 2004
Immigration moderates, concerned that unrelenting mass immigration threatens to balkanize the nation, have long been criticized as alarmist or worse.
Appeals to common sense or to history against the country’s blind and irreversible plunge down an unknown path have often gained moderates little more than an insulting dismissal as “cultural nativists,” as Sam Freedman put it in a column in yesterday’s New York Times.
A visit to the Spanish-language version of the Bush-Cheney campaign’s website, however, should make even the most benighted we-are-the-world egalitarian stop for a minute and wonder about the long term consequences of current immigration policy.
Visitors who click on the “En Espanol” link on the Bush-Cheney website are taken to the campaign’s Spanish-language site, where they are greeted by a Mexican flag prominently displayed on the home page.
Call me a cultural nativist, but there is something very wrong with an American president asking voters to entrust him with another four years as the nation’s leader, while dividing the nation’s voters into two groups and appealing to one under the flag of some other nation.
The distinction is more than symbolic.
Near the top of a page on the Spanish-language website listing translations of the president’s speeches is a link to the famous January 7, 2004 speech in which President Bush floated his wildly unpopular temporary guest worker amnesty.
But on the English-language site, the page listing the speeches from January 2004 does not contain the president’s January 7 amnesty speech.
Americans have been practicing democracy long enough to know that the leader of a united country leads one people, and a good leader leads straightforwardly in the best interests of one people and in accordance with the will of one people.
Unfortunately, President Bush and his administration have squandered a great deal of good will over immigration policy, but it’s not too late to regain much of it by ending the game playing—by dumping Karl Rove and whichever political science majors were responsible for the attempt to mislead voters with the incongruent campaign websites.
The president should also dump the Republican National Committee chairman he appointed, former Enron lobbyist, Ed Gillespie, since the RNC’s website, too, contains a Spanish-language version that does not carry the same message as the English-language version.
[While he’s at it, President Bush needs to direct the Department of Justice to launch an investigation into the lobbying and fundraising activities of those who stand to profit from certain provisions included in the monstrous AgJOBS amnesty, and he needs to direct the State Department to begin proceedings to expel Mexican diplomats from the United States who, by gross interference in state legislative battles, have violated the terms of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.]
Finally, President Bush needs to ensure that it’s as difficult to find a copy of the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal in the White House as it undoubtedly is to find a copy of the Village Voice.
+== TAKE POSITIVE ACTION ==+
Some Republicans object to so-called “Bush-bashing,” arguing Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry is worse.
Well, yes.
A California news organization called Vida en el Valle, reporting yesterday on a United Farm Workers convention (virtually ignored by the English-language media), wrote that on Saturday, Senator Kerry promised delegates he would “immediately sign the bipartisan AgJobs bill, which would allow undocumented farm workers to gain legal residency status,” if he defeats President Bush.
In light of a November 2003 Pew Research poll showing 76 percent of both Democrats and Independents support tighter U.S. immigration laws (not to mention 82 percent of Republicans), there is simply no issue on which Kerry and the Democratic Party—paralyzed by their embrace of ethnic identity politics—are even remotely as vulnerable as they are on immigration and amnesty.
Nevertheless, many Republicans, some of them afraid of name-calling from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, or afraid Ed Gillespie will shut off the money spigot, may have to be forced to seize on the opportunity to pound Kerry on his support for mass amnesty.
Talk radio is the one media power in the country, apparently, with the power to force Republicans to beat Kerry and the Democrats on amnesty.
It would be great to see talk radio unleash a wave of public outrage over the Mexican flag displayed on the Bush-Cheney Spanish-language campaign website, and over the ham-fisted and disgraceful attempt to fool the voters by campaigning for amnesty on one version of the website, while leaving it out of the other.
Perhaps then the Republicans will be brave enough to win.
If you’re tired of being played for a chump, help spark the outrage by making sure the hosts of your local talk radio shows are aware of the Republicans leadership’s duplicity (ask the
For a touch of pleasant irony, make sure you get the contact information for your local shows, and instructions on how to present your case on the air, from the Bush-Cheney campaign website: https://www.georgewbush.com/GetActive/CallTalkRadio.aspx
And since it’s probably as irksome to be hoodwinked in Spanish as it is in English, Spanish speakers can object to the president’s divisive and insulting hispandering on Spanish-language radio, too: https://www.georgewbush.com/espanol/CentroDeLaAccion/LlameaLosProgramasRadiales.aspx?aid=93
+== QUOTE OF THE WEEK ==+
The White House’s heavy hand on [the immigration] issue might stem from the understanding that their side would lose in an intramural GOP debate on immigration. No one criticizes the White House for having its own agenda distinct from the party’s, but the process is frustrating. While bringing democracy to the Middle East, Bush might consider trying it within the GOP.
— Timothy P. Carney, Evans-Novak Political Report for National Review Online
+== EMAIL OF THE WEEK ==+
I know this is unusual—but George Putnam, 50 year broadcaster and reporter now 89 years old in the Los Angeles area is back on the air1510am, Ontario, CA. He can be heard on the net at Crni.net (click on personalities), Monday-Friday from 12Pm-2pm PST. George has been fighting the illegal alien battle for 35 years long before many of us were born. The last station he was on was purchased by a Spanish talk network just to get him off the air, some believe.
He is well connected in this area and covers national immigration issues daily—sometimes pulling from your website for information.
Any chance of informing your readers about his program? We really need his voice out there. He needs sponsors too.
Tom Quaney
San Bernardino, CA
