Sen. Graham prides himself on being oh-so much smarter than your average peckerwood. I think we have to admit that his anchor baby gambit proves that he is right.
Look at the UPoR having seizures over Graham’s suggestion that birth-right citizenship is a vital part of the illegal immigration problem. Check folks on the Right who should know better either: A) Calling Graham’s new position a cynical flip-flop or B) Saying, finally, some sense out of the guy.
Folks, Lindsey Graham has not materially changed anything with regard to his approach to illegal immigration. He has simply opted for the Mike Huckabee route. Recall that Huckabee, when confronted with a political roadblock due to his repeated support of tax hikes and overall fiscal irresponsibility, jumped on the Fair Tax canard and declared that he wanted to abolish the IRS.
Now you can’t doubt the anti-tax cred of a man who wants to abolish the IRS, can you? Well you can, but the position is at least a talisman against the uninformed, which in a happy coincidence seem to make up the bulk of Huckabee’s supporters. Now comes Graham. Yes, he has been hand-in-glove with the Bush-McCain-Corporatist amnesty crowd but now…anchor babies, amend the Constitution.
But what about Arizona-style laws. Should the federal government…anchor babies, amend the Constitution. Banks that hand out federally-backed credit to illegals…anchor babies. Free public K-12 schooling for…anchor babies, amend the Constitution. In-state tuition…anchor babies. Putting businessmen in jail who…anchor babies. 287(g) programs…anchor babies, amend the Constitution.
What a classic misdirection. And it is working. As it has always worked across human history.
The villagers are marching with torches, sick of the nobleman’s heavy taxes. At the castle gate Lord Peckerwood greets them, apologizes for the heavy bite his levies claim. “But I must you see. To build this strong castle, to equip and pay these expensive archers, to keep the Mountain Dragon at bay. Yet you are right. This must end. I declare that we must go into the mountains and slay the dragon there, once and for all! To the mountains, friends!”
And off trudge the villagers in search of some mythic fix to the problem at hand. Amending the Constitution might as well be a Mountain Dragon — just as real, just as possible. Graham knows this just as Huckabee knows it about the IRS. Bob Dole made a career out of this sort of thing — deflect upset and support the impossible, yet go on cutting endless side deals in the name of being “reasonable.” But never, ever get behind actual substantive change that would upset the status quo.
Besides, on the matter of anchor babies, if too much welfare to unskilled illegal immigrants is a problem, isn’t too much welfare to unskilled American citizens, setting up all kinds of perverse incentives, an exponentially larger problem?
But hey, I’m clearly in the minority here. They say a nation gets the leaders it deserves. South Carolina and the rest of America evidently deserve to get some Lindsey Graham good and hard.
