Kautzman’s AP GO PO Blog

Kathleen Parker
Orlando Sentinel
November 7, 2007

When Hillary Clinton fumbled a recent debate question about New York’s plan to grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, she helped clarify at least one issue that keeps getting muddied: Illegal immigrants are illegal.

Why, then, are we granting them driver’s licenses?

Thus far, eight states allow illegal immigrants to receive licenses or permits (and 10 states offer in-state tuition) – all in the spirit of making America a better place.

But we don’t want to encourage immigrants to come here illegally.

Gotcha.

The illegal immigrant problem is huge, obviously, and there’s no single solution. But there is one word that would get the ball rolling in the right direction and win a lot of voters’ hearts: disincentivize. Stop making it so attractive to slip through, over and under the border.

As long as we offer jobs, medical treatment, driver’s licenses and in-state tuition to those who come here illegally, why would any right-thinking, would-be immigrant take a number and wait his turn? Why not just throw in the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders and free tequila while we’re at it?

Arguments favoring services and privileges for illegal immigrants always point to the broader benefits to society. Healthy immigrants mean a healthier America; an educated populace means fewer jobless dependents; legal drivers are more responsible because, allegedly, they’ll also buy insurance and stick around when they have an accident.

The latter seems unconvincing given that illegal immigrants, by definition, tend not to think legally. In any case, by the same logic we might also say that amnesty is good for the country because then everyone would be legal. Rather than fix something, we simply accommodate circumstances. As in: Kids are having sex anyway, so we’ll just give them condoms.

Advocates for licensing also argue that illegal immigrants can’t get jobs without a driver’s license. Do I hear bingo? Isn’t that the point?

On the one hand, we argue that employers should be penalized for hiring illegal immigrants; on the other, we insist that the immigrants need driver’s licenses because employers demand them. I’m beginning to see how Clinton got so tangled up. You cannot argue rationally in defense of the irrational.

The Monday morning quarterback is, of course, a brilliant seer, and the stands are filled with hindsight prophets this week. Here’s one more shoulda for the pile-on. When NBC’s Tim Russert asked why she thought New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s proposal to give illegal immigrants driver’s licenses made sense, Clinton should have simply said:

“It makes sense for states to seek solutions given the federal government’s failure to reform immigration, but I’m not 100 percent satisfied with the licensing plan. Unfortunately, Tim, I’ll need more than 30 seconds to outline my concerns.”

Or something to that effect. Instead, Clinton called for immigration reform. It’s easy to say we need reform. Everybody agrees with that. It’s much harder to say we need to stop rewarding “illegal.”

Clinton even refused to use the term “illegal immigrant,” preferring the blander “undocumented worker,” as though people who cross our border illegally are just like the rest of us except for those darned documents.

They may be nice, hard-working people, but they’re not like other immigrants who, having come here legally, have demonstrated a commitment to the rule of law and fairness.

Surely, we can love our neighbors and be a pro-immigrant nation without granting de facto citizenship to illegal immigrants through a menu of rights and privileges. As is, all that’s missing is the oath – and any meaning attached to it.

Beyond principle, there are practical reasons for denying licenses to illegal immigrants. As some reformers have pointed out, the driver’s license is more than a permit to drive. It’s a nationally recognized ID that implies citizenship, and is the most coveted “breeder document” of terrorists because it allows them access to all the other things they need to blend in – jobs, housing, bank accounts – as well as access to commercial airplanes and rental cars.

Many states still don’t verify applicants’ identities. In May 2001, when Tennessee dropped its requirement that applicants supply a Social Security number, tens of thousands of illegal immigrants applied for licenses, according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

There may be no way to solve every aspect of the immigration problem. Certainly, no serious person thinks we can round up 12 million people and deport them. But it would be refreshing if we began to take seriously what it means to be a citizen and stop making it so attractive to be a lawbreaker.

That would make sense.

Eric Boehlert
Media Matters for America
November 6, 2007

Did you notice the contrasting media responses to comedian Stephen Colbert’s short-lived plan to get his factually challenged TV namesake on the ballot for the South Carolina presidential primary? The mainstream Beltway press could barely contain its glee as it cheered on the stunt, lavishing all sorts of media attention on Colbert and basking in the entertainment glow that his act brought to the White House campaign trail.

By contrast, it was mostly left to nontraditional online outlets, such as The Huffington Post and Gawker, to strike a skeptical chord, to suggest that perhaps this wasn’t the best idea since Colbert’s publicity stunt might pose a distraction at a time when the campaign should be focusing on big issues.

That’s a fair point. But consider this: The Colbert candidacy only became a distraction because the press allowed it to, because the press literally drives itself to distraction on the campaign trail. That’s not an unfortunate side effect of the process. That’s the goal.

I’m almost relieved that Democratic officials in South Carolina squashed the Colbert stunt by denying his attempt to get on the ballot. That’s the only way the press was going to drop the story.

Think of the political press corps as that fat kid from “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory,” Augustus Gloop. For too many journalists, the lure of the Colbert candidacy is akin to Wonka’s river of chocolate, the one that lured the candy-loving Gloop into the deep end and got him stuck inside the tubes. The press already seems to do everything it can to avoid covering campaign substance. Instead, it pursues trivia such as John Edwards’ haircut, or Hillary Clinton’s laugh and her cleavage. The allure of a saccharine story like Colbert’s running gag was simply too tempting.

That’s because the press has decided to cover presidential candidates as celebrities, as personalities. The media phenomena became enshrined during the 2000 contest when the press announced that presidential campaigns were no longer about how candidates might function as presidents, what they might actually do as commander in chief. Instead, campaigns were about personalities – which candidate was fun to be around and which one was authentic.

The approach is thriving today. Look at the latest research findings from the campaign trail: “Just 12 percent of stories examined were presented in a way that explained how citizens might be affected by the election,” according to Editor & Publisher magazine. “And just 1 percent of stories examined the candidates’ records or past public performance.”

The obvious media reaction to the Colbert candidacy should have been to note it as the book-selling publicity stunt that it was, have a chuckle, and move on. Instead, the press lingered, giving the story way too much attention, and often at the expense of more pressing topics.

For instance, ABC’s “Nightline” found time to cover the Colbert candidacy. Yet “Nightline” has not found time during the past six weeks to cover the war from Iraq.

Colbert’s race did momentarily seem to gain newsworthiness last week when a Rasmussen poll showed the “Comedy Central” host grabbing an impressive 13 percent when positioned as an independent candidate.

None of the news reports I saw about the polling results mentioned it, but what exactly is the point of conducting a national poll since Colbert is only trying to get on the ballot in one state? Meaning, of the 1,200 people Rasmussen polled, it’s likely that, based on census data, maybe 10 or 20 of the respondents were actually from South Carolina. It’s like running a national poll on whom Americans would prefer to be the next senator from New York; it’s a perfectly pointless exercise except, of course, that in the case of Colbert it’s fun and entertaining.

Nonetheless, on Oct. 29, “Good Morning America” host Diane Sawyer, in an apparent reference to the Rasmussen poll, suggested that, “If (Colbert) keeps gaining at the rate he’s gaining, by the end of November he could be the leading candidate.”

Question: In the history of modern-day American presidential campaigns, has a new candidate ever entered the race polling at roughly 10 percent and then proceeded to pick up an additional 10 percent each week for four weeks running? Ever? Why would anybody suggest that a late-night comedian might be able to accomplish what no other candidate has ever done in American politics? What would prompt somebody to suggest that Colbert, by next month, might soon be garnering 40 percent and be the leading candidate for president?

Answer: Because it’s fun.

Michael Barone
U.S. News & World Report
November 6, 2007

October 2007 may turn out to be the month that immigration became a key issue in presidential politics. It hasn’t been, at least in my lifetime.

The Immigration Act of 1965, which turned out to open up America to mass immigration after four decades of restrictive laws, wasn’t one of the Great Society issues Lyndon Johnson emphasized in 1964. The Immigration Act of 1986, which legalized millions of illegal immigrants but whose border and workplace provisions have never been effectively enforced, was a bipartisan measure unmentioned in the debates between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale.

There was no perceptible difference on immigration between George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000. Both favored a comprehensive bill with legalization and guest-worker provisions. John Kerry in 2006 and 2007 voted for immigration bills along the lines supported by Bush.

Now, things look different. In the Democratic debate on Oct. 30, Tim Russert demanded to know whether Hillary Clinton supported New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s policy of issuing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. The forthright answer: yes and no. A clarifying statement by the Clinton campaign later in the week did not much clarify things: a hedged yes. It was one of several issues on which Clinton seemed to take calculating and ambiguous nonpositions. But it is one that may have major reverberations in the presidential campaign – and in congressional races, as well.

The reason is that the Democrats – and Bush – are out of line with public opinion on the issue. That became clear as the Senate debated a comprehensive immigration bill in May and June. Most Republicans and many Democrats, in the Senate and among the public, turned against the bill. Supporters of the bill tended to ascribe that to something like racism: They just don’t like having so many Mexicans around.

But if you listened to the opponents, you heard something else. They want the current law to be enforced. It bothers them that we have something like 12 million illegal immigrants in our country. It bothers them that most of the southern border is unfenced and unpatrolled. It bothers them that illegal immigrants routinely use forged documents to get jobs – or are given jobs with no documents at all.

You don’t have to be a racist to be bothered by such things. You just have to be a citizen who thinks that massive failure to enforce the law is corrosive to society.

That was apparent to me as I listened to a focus group of Republican voters in suburban Richmond, Va., conducted by Peter Hart for the Annenberg School of Communications. One voter after another complained that the immigration laws were not being enforced. None of them made any derogatory remarks about Latino immigrants – two said they admired how hard they work. They don’t want to see Latinos banished from this country. They want the immigrants here to be here legally.

Which leaves Democratic politicians and political candidates out on a pretty flimsy limb. Most of them reflexively back a comprehensive bill, and some of them (like Bush and a number of Republicans backing such a bill) have dismissed opponents as racists.

Most Democrats have also been backing bills extending various benefits to illegal immigrants, like the Dream Act for college education for illegals brought over as children. There are appealing arguments for such bills. But most voters reject them. And most voters certainly reject driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants. That was one of the issues that led to the recall of Gov. Gray Davis in California in 2003.

The Republican presidential candidates have taken note. Only John McCain, a longtime backer of a comprehensive bill, stands apart, and he concedes that voters are demanding tougher enforcement. In the special congressional election in Massachusetts on Oct. 5, the Republican was able to hold the Democrat to 51 percent by stressing immigration as one of his two top issues.

Other Republicans are likely to echo that theme next fall. And the Democratic presidential nominee (unless Chris Dodd gets the nod) is going to have to explain why she or he believes it’s a good idea to give illegal immigrants driver’s licenses.

The last several Democratic nominees could have said that they’re just taking the same position as their Republican opponent. The 2008 nominee won’t be able to say the same of hers or his (unless McCain gets the nod).

“The centrality of illegal immigration to the current discontent about the direction of the country may be taking us back again to a welfare moment,” write the shrewd Democratic strategists James Carville and Stanley Greenberg. Yup.