According to CNN, Lindsey Graham’s statement last week in reaction to Sen Harry Reid’s move to push immigration reform ahead of the climate bill could derail the President’s current legislative agenda. CNN fortune-telling and tea leaf reading is not an exact science. [CNN]
Graham’s oft-quoted out of context statements were taken from a letter to his colleagues the text of which is available here. Drawing attention to Senate Leader Harry Reid’s irresponsible tackling of a historically complicated matter in a hurried fashion (as Graham had done in the case of Health Care) is defensible. But he may regret his sharp ad hominem attack on Reid’s move to re prioritize the legislative calendar and put the climate bill on hold. He characterized it as a “cynical political ploy” that was based on consideration of the upcoming election.
But Graham’s own haste in responding to unfolding events may just go down as mere “pique.” After all, he did say to the press that he and Sen Schumer had worked long hours on draft climate legislation and that they had not been informed of the priority change. [Washington Post] At the very least, many will view Graham’s reaction as Democrats have intended: as the latest irrational outburst from the “party of no.”
There are at least four additional reasons Graham’s position cannot reasonably be defended:
- Democrats are taking a page from the Republican book on tackling health care reform. In offering to put immigration on the front burner, they appear to be listening to the people – the Latino population of America. While all Latinos are not in Arizona, their close identification with the plight of their brothers and sisters there must be assumed. Graham appears inconvenienced by the block in the legislative process rather than responsive to citizens’ needs as expressed in growing demonstrations in Arizona.
- Democrats will infer that it is Graham who has acted in haste, that his remarks have been irresponsible and insensitive and that he is not a team player.
- Democrats will happily link the entire Republican party to Graham’s views – a party they have successfully linked to right wing extremism.
- Democrats have pointed to the fact that Republicans do not support amnesty and that bringing immigration legislation to the fore will sink their 2010 chances.
Republicans have begun to recoup with arguments such as the import of the need to first secure the border. But they must
- Move more quickly than they have over the weekend and on the Sunday talk shows to get out in front of this story.
- They need to make the direct connection between the Administration’s responsibility for securing the border and the fact that they’ve had over a year to do this.
- Republicans need to avoid the argument that immigration reform affects only Arizona and other southern border states and that the climate bill will benefit the entire nation by making it energy independent and more fiscally sound.
- Republicans need to re-position the immigration issue and put it into the context in which it belongs: We are fighting an international war at our southern border against terrorist infiltration, human trafficking in illegals and drugs. Arizona should be declared what it has become: a war zone. During times of war the kinds of searches carried out under the new Arizona law are reasonable and more people would view it that way were immigration to be highlighted as only part of a larger problem. Drug dealers and terrorists have been and are benefiting from the immigration debate as they dress as Mexicans and slide through the keyhole.
Obama opened the 2010 election season with his health care reform tour. Republicans have not done much except remain frozen in the death lock Democrats have put them in. They have had few good comebacks against Democrats and their most successful weapon: their labeling machine. They have so far successfully marked Republicans and Tea Partiers as extremists akin to the Klu Klux Klan.
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HotAir – Correction: The actual Arizona immigration bill
HotAir – Obama: Arizonans “irresponsible” for immigration-enforcement vote
VotingFemale Speaks! – Heads Up DHS, Bertha Lewis is plotting racial violence and civil unrest
HotAir – Video: Arizona governor signs controversial immigration bill; Update: Corrected
Posted on April 25, 2010