President Bush and the Knee Jerk Reaction

I think that President Bush has earned a bit of a Knee Jerk Reaction at this point. He has screwed up so consistently over the last 5 years that predicting he will screw up in the future is a safe bet. But it's not always the best response to the President, as Robert Scheer points out in his latest article.

What is different about Bush's stance on immigration is that the president is, at long last, dealing with a subject he actually knows something about -- as opposed to his failed war of words against terrorism, Iraq, nuclear weapons proliferation and even Social Security. On this subject, the former governor of a state with a 1,200- mile border with Mexico grasps that the problem is complex, the solution elusive, and fact and logic do matter.

Scheer makes the point that President Bush's plan does provide some way to deal with those who are here currently.

"What I've just described is not amnesty, it is a way for those who have broken the law to pay their debt to society, and demonstrate the character that makes a good citizen," Bush said, in what is certainly one of his milder stretches of the truth.

This de facto amnesty would allow those already here without papers to go about their work and lives without fear of deportation. This is crucial, because the alternative is social chaos of a dimension not experienced in this country since the Civil War and Reconstruction.

As Bush put it with uncharacteristic clarity: "It is neither wise nor realistic to round up millions of people, many with deep roots in the United States, and send them across the border."

Anyway, something worth considering.