Posted on 05/23/2006 3:47:41 PM PDT by Reagan Man
Fred Barnes had a piece for the Weekly Standard, his most recent piece. It's entitled: "How to Lose the House -- Republicans are staring political disaster in the face on immigration," and essentially what Fred Barnes is saying (and he's wrong), is that the House needs to adopt the Senate immigration reform plan, Hagel-Martinez, and if they do that, they'll keep the House. He could not be more wrong. The House, it looks like if you look at it through a certain prism, you could say that the Republican House is facing a disaster, but not because that they're not emulating the Senate. It's because moderate Senate Republicans and the president and liberal Senate Democrats have joined up to push a bill the American people will never tolerate.
The American people are not for open borders. The American people are not all for a run on Social Security via identity theft. The American people will never buy into the notion, "You steal it; you earn it." This is how we issue talking points on this program. We don't get them. We issue them, and we are sending out a talking point to everybody. This position on Social Security, "Well, they paid their taxes. They paid their taxes! It's unfair. Give them benefits, Limbaugh!" Fine. Okay, but if they stole the Social Security card to get there and they've got a driver's license and a bank account and they've dug deep into the system with a stolen identity, and they're going to have the Congress come back and say, "They've paid into the system, they deserve it."
Okay, then they stole it. They earned it. Wouldn't you love to have that apply to your life? You steal it and you earn it. You steal it and you own it. American people are not going to put up with that, and they're not going to put up with Davis Bacon union wages for so-called temporary workers who aren't really temporary because they don't have to return home, and then of course all these millions of new legal immigrants that this bill envisions. Now, if the Republicans lose the House, it's not going to be because they blocked this outrage. It will be because conservatives and other Americans are so disgusted with what is going on that they will either withhold their votes from Republicans in protest or they'll vote for someone else, and yet here comes our buddy Fred Barnes inside the Beltway once again -- you know what this all adds up to?
It's really not complicated. What we have here, we have our own set of intellectuals in the conservative, quote, unquote, movement. We've got our own conservative elites, and they're, you know, the New York, Washington, Boston corridor, the axis, and they like any elites have a disdain for the common man. You can look at calling the Minutemen vigilantes, just average citizens trying to fix a problem that people in Washington refuse to acknowledge exists. There is a disdain, I think, for the, quote, unquote, common man. They're uncomfortable. They're uncomfortable having you on their side.
When you people who are considered the average American, the common man and the common woman, and when you're on television out there, you conservatives, when you're on television out there speaking your mind on immigration, the elites in our party look at you and they are embarrassed, they are embarrassed to be identified with you. They live in a world of elites, media elites, academic elites, and so to stay on the good side with all the other elites, because this is a group that's bound by what they think their common IQs are, which are higher than everybody else and to stay within the good graces, the cocktail party circuit, you speak in disdain.
I've told you the story about being at these dinner parties out in the Hamptons in the nineties, early nineties, and all these country club big contributors come up to me, introduced to me for the first time, meeting me for the first time, they're just beside themselves about abortion, how it's going to tear the country apart. We're going to lose the party, Republican Party is going to go down the tubes, "Rush, they listen to you. You've gotta straighten them out on this. You've gotta shut 'em up," and it was just they were embarrassed. When the average abortion or pro-lifer was put on television, they saw a hayseed, they saw a hick, they saw an uneducated, unsophisticated boob.
They just didn't want to be perceived as being on the same team by their fellow elites, even though they might be Democrats -- and so you go up to one of these elites, "Yeah, you're on the same side as Randall Terry," and they just shrunk in embarrassment, and that's what's going on in the immigration debate, too. It's just a matter of trying to save face with people of like-minded intellects and IQs within the subgroup that they're all a member of. I've gotta take a quick time-out. We'll be back and continue here in mere moments and get to your phone calls as well. I appreciate those of you who have been on hold and waiting for what I'm sure to you seems like forever.
I will still vote Republican if the House can truly get significant concessions from the Senate. I would love enforcement only, but the fact is that losing the House is a very distinct possiblity. And I shudder to think what kind of bill a Pelosi-McCain love match would produce in 2007.
""When you people who are considered the average American, the common man and the common woman, and when you're on television out there, you conservatives, when you're on television out there speaking your mind on immigration, the elites in our party look at you and they are embarrassed, they are embarrassed to be identified with you. They live in a world of elites, media elites, academic elites, and so to stay on the good side with all the other elites, because this is a group that's bound by what they think their common IQs are, which are higher than everybody else and to stay within the good graces, the cocktail party circuit, you speak in disdain.""
Sadly, in a nutshell.
Good catch, RM!
Great Post Reaganman.
If I had a tally of all the wrong predictions Barnes made, I would have a Webster Dictionary.
"Did Fred Barnes get sun stroke from the heat?
He's normally far more sensible than this."
I think he's been hanging around Bill Kristol too much.
I had a red flag go up a while back when Fred said the House version was "mean spirited".
Fred Barnes must be insane.
Congress and the White House have created the illegal immigration problem by refusing to enforce the laws the passed, signed and swore to uphold and now they have the utter gall to tell us that the solution is to just make them all legal with a stroke of the pen?
It will be a cold, cold day in hell before I give the GOP another nickel if this passes.
GOP Won't Hold the House By Passing the Senate Bill
bump
El Rushbo flushing the toilet filled with OBL's.
Barnes is a neocon elitist "intellectual." He and Kristol, Krauthammer, McCain, among others got us into the Balkan mess by giving Biden, Albright and Clinton "conservative" cover for the involvement-- and we ended up empowering Islamics by giving them lots more real estate. But no matter what disaster Barnes promotes, he's still going to have his phony baloney job.
And I shudder to think what kind of bill a Pelosi-McCain love match would produce in 2007.
Anyone who votes for either party is just perpetuating the third world invasion. Take a good look at your children and grandchildren before you vote for either party, they are going to be the ones who will suffer.
I like Barnes, but damn he can get things REALLY wrong sometimes. This is one of those times.
I remember that Fred Barnes made that comment anout HR4437 and was stunned. Fact is, as with PresBush, the likes of Barnes and Bill Kristol are libertarian when it comes to the immigration issue. They have no problem with open borders and illegal border crossers.
I have listened to the "look how much worse the Democrats are," crowd too long. Just the mere chant that they are not Democrats no longer works. My over-riding issue is stopping illegal immigration. If neither of the major parties will take a stand on this problem, then I am looking elsewhere. I have to make my party understand that if they are more sensitive to the concerns of those who are here illegally, than those of native-born citizens, then I am ready to take a walk. When they grant these invaders in-state tuition fees at our universities while denying the same benefits to native-born citizens from other states, they show their contempt for me. When they refuse to go after employers who hire these illegals, they thumb their noses at the will of the majority. They ignore the very people whom they were elected to represent! We'll see how they like standing in the unemployment line! The voice of "We the People," will be heard!
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