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Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Where's the Dark
Matter?
Dark Matter. The stuff we can't see that has to be there anyway.
Dark Matter. The stuff we can't see that has to be there anyway.
REPUBLICANS
REDUX. Maybe I'm just dense or uninformed, but this whole
immigration debate on the Republican side of the aisle doesn't make any
sense to me. At all. If there's any one attribute that characterizes
Republican members of Congress, it's gutlessness. Their ability to hide
from controversy by saying as little as possible and doing even less is
legendary. That's why the Republican side of Congress has been meek and
almost silent during the prolonged stretches of time when George Bush
needed their support on the war, Social Security reform, over-the-top
partisan charges of lying and corruption, and other controversies.
While the Democrat opposition went after their president and party
leader like rabid dogs, they were willing to overlook the most
scurrilous libels for fear of inciting the Dems further. During the
past six years they haven't even been able to stand up articulately for
their own party principles regarding responsible federal spending and
limited government. A single headline could be applied to most of the
congressional activity during the past year: "Schumer and Pelosi
Attack; Republicans Cower."
Yet now, suddenly, numerous Republicans in both the Senate and the House look almost fearless in their defense of a legislative compromise with Teddy Kennedy of all people for the purpose of ramming a carelessly written time bomb of an immigration bill through the United States Congress. They seem cheerfully unconcerned about serious danger signals -- contributions to the RNC are plunging, and the right-wing blogosphere is steaming with angry repudiations of a president and a party no one has done more to defend for six long years. They don't even seem to care about the unanimous damnation they have received from the Republican Furies: Noonan, Ingraham, Malkin, and Coulter.
Be afraid. Be very afraid. They're ALL mad as hell.
Yet now, suddenly, numerous Republicans in both the Senate and the House look almost fearless in their defense of a legislative compromise with Teddy Kennedy of all people for the purpose of ramming a carelessly written time bomb of an immigration bill through the United States Congress. They seem cheerfully unconcerned about serious danger signals -- contributions to the RNC are plunging, and the right-wing blogosphere is steaming with angry repudiations of a president and a party no one has done more to defend for six long years. They don't even seem to care about the unanimous damnation they have received from the Republican Furies: Noonan, Ingraham, Malkin, and Coulter.
Be afraid. Be very afraid. They're ALL mad as hell.
The one safe response to this kind of
ire is to forget all the
polls and hide: do everything possible to prevent the bill from coming
to a vote AND JUST LET IT DIE.
Yet Lindsey Graham blithely tosses around terms like 'bigotry,' John McCain gets in the face of rank-and-file Republicans in New Hampshire with a challenge to propose a better idea or shut up, and the 'bi-partisan coalition' behind the bill issues bland statements to the press making absurd claims like this one:
All this in the context of the fact that the polls do NOT show a universal mandate for passage of some kind of a comprehensive immigration bill, no matter how half-assed and fraudulent its enforcement provisions are. The poll data are ambiguous at best, depending on whether the pollsters rig the questions in favor of enforcement or a path to citizenship.
I grant that this makes the Republican horde in Congress look as if they were taking a courageous stand on the basis of principle. But that's obviously ridiculous. The only Republican in the U.S. Senate who could be accused of courage as a character trait is John McCain, and unfortunately, it's equally likely that he's just a passive-aggressive maniac who's never quite escaped imprisonment in Vietnam.
So where exactly is the huge, irresistible force behind passage of this legislative abomination? It's not George W. Bush. He's already a lame duck congressional Republicans have been trying to disassociate themselves from for over a year. (At least GWB's been aboveboard about his position; he's a Tex-Mex true believer on this issue, and he honestly doesn't care if his great grandchildren grow up learning Spanish as a first language. We knew that about him in 2000.) It's most definitely and absolutely not the Republican base on which all congressional Republicans depend for renomination, not to mention reelection. And it's demonstrably not the prospect of building a future Republican majority out of grateful hispanic votes. The only Republican hispanics are the anti-Castro Cubans in Florida. The rest will head straight for the biggest gravy train big government spenders promise them.
That's the pertinence of the dark matter analogy. Physicists dreamed up the idea of dark matter because there wasn't enough observable matter in the universe to account for the way the universe appears to be working. Dark matter became necessary to make the calculations work out right. The dark matter in the immigration issue is the unseen, unwritten-about power that must be driving this suicidal rush toward a bill that will not reduce illegal immigration or solve any of its kaleidoscope of problems.
What lobby or combination of lobbies is so omnipotent as to transform lifelong political cowards into reckless gamblers who sneer right in the faces of the voters who put them in office? Where's the benefit that outweighs the enormity of the risk? What's worth the potential cost of giving the opposition a generation-long veto-proof majority in Congress?
I don't know the answer to the dark matter question. I don't have a clue. But I'm amazed that no one else seems to be asking it. And I'm pretty sure it's the most important question there is about the whole controversy. The facts that are unfolding in each day's headlines, blogs, and punditry make no sense.
Who will step forward to explain? I'm waiting.
Am I the only one who's curious?
Yet Lindsey Graham blithely tosses around terms like 'bigotry,' John McCain gets in the face of rank-and-file Republicans in New Hampshire with a challenge to propose a better idea or shut up, and the 'bi-partisan coalition' behind the bill issues bland statements to the press making absurd claims like this one:
"You just have to recognize you will
get 300 calls, you'll get conflicts at town hall meetings -- all of
them negative," said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who consulted with Kyl
and hopes to carry a similar deal through the House in July. "The last
few days have really turned things around."
All this in the context of the fact that the polls do NOT show a universal mandate for passage of some kind of a comprehensive immigration bill, no matter how half-assed and fraudulent its enforcement provisions are. The poll data are ambiguous at best, depending on whether the pollsters rig the questions in favor of enforcement or a path to citizenship.
I grant that this makes the Republican horde in Congress look as if they were taking a courageous stand on the basis of principle. But that's obviously ridiculous. The only Republican in the U.S. Senate who could be accused of courage as a character trait is John McCain, and unfortunately, it's equally likely that he's just a passive-aggressive maniac who's never quite escaped imprisonment in Vietnam.
So where exactly is the huge, irresistible force behind passage of this legislative abomination? It's not George W. Bush. He's already a lame duck congressional Republicans have been trying to disassociate themselves from for over a year. (At least GWB's been aboveboard about his position; he's a Tex-Mex true believer on this issue, and he honestly doesn't care if his great grandchildren grow up learning Spanish as a first language. We knew that about him in 2000.) It's most definitely and absolutely not the Republican base on which all congressional Republicans depend for renomination, not to mention reelection. And it's demonstrably not the prospect of building a future Republican majority out of grateful hispanic votes. The only Republican hispanics are the anti-Castro Cubans in Florida. The rest will head straight for the biggest gravy train big government spenders promise them.
That's the pertinence of the dark matter analogy. Physicists dreamed up the idea of dark matter because there wasn't enough observable matter in the universe to account for the way the universe appears to be working. Dark matter became necessary to make the calculations work out right. The dark matter in the immigration issue is the unseen, unwritten-about power that must be driving this suicidal rush toward a bill that will not reduce illegal immigration or solve any of its kaleidoscope of problems.
What lobby or combination of lobbies is so omnipotent as to transform lifelong political cowards into reckless gamblers who sneer right in the faces of the voters who put them in office? Where's the benefit that outweighs the enormity of the risk? What's worth the potential cost of giving the opposition a generation-long veto-proof majority in Congress?
I don't know the answer to the dark matter question. I don't have a clue. But I'm amazed that no one else seems to be asking it. And I'm pretty sure it's the most important question there is about the whole controversy. The facts that are unfolding in each day's headlines, blogs, and punditry make no sense.
Who will step forward to explain? I'm waiting.
Am I the only one who's curious?
