No limit to Howard Dean's deceptive rhetoric

AP Wire | 03/31/2006 | Howard Dean accuses Bush, GOP of exploiting immigration issue:
"Dean and Bush agree on the legislation at the heart of the debate. Both support a Senate bill that would expand guest-worker programs for an estimated 400,000 immigrants each year.
"However, at a speech in an Oakland union hall, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate sought to tie Bush to a much tougher House bill that would tighten borders and make it a crime to be in the United States illegally or to offer aid to illegal immigrants. Bush does not back the House bill."

The old saying goes "Politics makes strange bedfellows." It also seems to make strange antagonists. Howard Dean and George Bush may not agree on the Iraq war, taxes, or social security reform, but they are united in their determination to flood the US with low-skilled laborers, their dependents, and a not inconsiderable number of criminals (I have seen figures quoted that indicate a fourth to a third of federal prison inmates are here illegally). They both favor amnesty.

Now, if you believed all that rot you were taught in your eighth grade civics class about people in politics working together for the public good, you would expect Howard Dean and George Bush to work together for amnesty for illegal border crossers the way Bush and US Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) worked together to pass the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) education bill.

Clearly, this is not happening and politics is the reason why.

NCLB passed because it gave the Democrats exactly what they want in any education bill - more money, some of which will hire more teachers whose union dues will be used to elect more Democrats. NCLB also allowed the president to pretend to the "suburban soccer mom" demographic that he had done something to promote better education. NCLB was even sold to the right wing of the GOP on the basis that it included a voucher program - which it did. But, the voucher program was tailored to the interests of Ted Kennedy's two favorite groups the Democrat Party and the National Education Association (actually, they are just two fingers of the same hand, but it is considered impolite to point that out). The voucher component of NCLB is so cumbersome to invoke and so limited in extent that it is the functional equivalent of a ban on voucher programs.

So, why isn't Dean praising Bush's commitment to amnesty for lawbreakers? Because the political benefits of this bill can only be spun one way - as a sop to the Hispanic vote and neither side wants to let the other take any of the credit. Actually, Bush might be willing to share the glory with the Dems - he's that kind of guy, but Dean ain't.