Posted on 04/26/2006 5:20:12 PM PDT by West Coast Conservative
President Bush generally favors plans to give millions of illegal immigrants a chance at U.S. citizenship without leaving the country, but does not want to be more publicly supportive because of opposition among conservative House Republicans, according to senators who attended a recent White House meeting.
Several officials familiar with the meeting also said Democrats protested radio commercials that blamed them for Republican-written legislation that passed the House and would make illegal immigrants vulnerable to felony charges.
Bush said he was unfamiliar with the ads, which were financed by the Republican National Committee, according to officials familiar with the discussions.
At another point, Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada and other members of his party pressed the president about their concern that any Senate-passed bill would be made unpalatable in final talks with the House.
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat, said the lawmaker who would lead House negotiators, House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, had been "intractable" in negotiations on other high-profile bills in the past. Bush did not directly respond to the remark, officials said.
The Republican and Democratic officials who described the conversation did so Wednesday on condition of anonymity, saying they had not been authorized to disclose details.
Bush convened the session to give momentum to the drive for election-year immigration legislation, a contentious issue that has triggered large street demonstrations and produced divisions in both political parties. Senators of both parties emerged from the session praising the president's involvement and said the timetable was achievable.
"Yes, he thinks people should be given a path to citizenship," said Sen. Mel Martinez., R-Fla., a leading supporter of immigration legislation in the Senate.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The Washington Post: "Even our weather reports come from anonymous sources."
Does this really shock anyone here? I'vw known this for some time now.
Now lets see if he can carry out the will of the people (the citizens, that is...not the illegals or Vincente Fox).
And Bush wonders why his job approval ratings are headed toward the floor.
Privately, I can't even tell you what I think about Bush. Pack it in the country, well, color it gone.
Bush just lost the support that put him in office. A sad day to witness....IMO.
But posters on this forum will take this piece of crap report and run with it.
Bush ran on "normalization" with illegal mexicans in 2000. I'm only amazed that his base forgot about it or thought he didn't mean it. Bush never says anything he doesn't mean.
I don't think he needs guidance from anyone on this. He's a true believer in open borders or something close to it.
Real shocker...
:) This is actually a good story for our side. Bush meeting and working with democrats while ignoring Republicans, even shutting them out is just the sort of thing that'll keep that monstrosity in the Senate from ever becoming law.
He's always said he wants them to have a pathway to citizenship so why would AP need anonymous sources?
ANONYMOUS source?
Tell the AP to screw themselves. This is not news. It's gossip. If the AP needs some news, then they need to check out the recently translated Iraq prewar documents. That's NEWS!
There is already a path to citizenship. It's just not by stealing your way into the country and expecting your reward without penalty. Not just yet.
I'd prefer Bush to come right out and tell America he WILL get his amnesty for both his felon employer friends and their near-slave laborers and abolish the US/Mexico border along with the middle class of America.
At least he'd be a lot more near revealing the truth.
Who were the Senators talking??
Names would help
That ANY MOUSE is one busy RAT...
And we expect the AP to get this story right? Oh geez.
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