Bush 43's Legacy and a Political Mess of Pottage
By Rense Johnson, chairman, Citizens for Term Limits
Years of neglect of the illegal immigration issue by three presidents reflect selective enforcement of our laws by Bush One, Clinton and Bush Two.
So far as I know, presidential selective enforcement of our laws — meaning enforcement of only the laws the executive happens to like or agree with — is not an impeachable offence.
Perhaps it should be. It certainly marginalizes Congress. (That is if those worthies ever figure it out after their ruckus about the FBI’s confiscation of criminal evidence found on the files of Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson.)
The question then becomes “What is that third co-equal branch of government (Congress) about?” Its power has been greatly diminished when its laws are selectively enforced. And unless passed over a presidential veto, these laws have been endorsed by presidential signature. (We all know that President G. W. Bush’s veto pen has never been used.)
Furthermore, if our laws had been enforced relative to our boarders and relative to aliens who have sneaked across them, and the treatment of those who harbor and/or illegally employ them, then our country would not have the eleven to twenty million illegals who want to take over our country and think they have every right to do so.
Any Bush political victory, achieved by bringing Senate amnesty-bound political factions under his tent is not a victory for U. S. Citizens. And a political victory born of a desperate need to improve approval ratings will turn out indeed to be pyrrhic. I think his instincts are better, but he listens to bad political advice
Bush 43 has otherwise built a splendid legacy consisting of:
I Salutary recognition of the deadly intent of the Al Quaida vermin and their leaders, and determination to go after them where they are before they can come to our shores again,
II Tax reduction, allowing Americans to keep more of their own money,
III And a restoration of strict constructionist jurists in our federal courts,
all of which are gains which could win for any president a huge place in history.
But it will all go down the drain if Bush 43 sells that legacy for a mess of political pottage — his legacy sold for short-term gain, just as biblical Esau sold his birthright for immediate gain — thereby opening the floodgates to let in scores of millions of additional illegal immigrants in future years, a flood continuing certainly after he leaves office, likely extending beyond his lifetime since there is no built-in structural means of stemming the tide in the out years other than totally enforcing the law, which three presidents have failed to do. And given Bush 43’s bent for selective enforcement, we would have no conviction that he means what he says. See Solemnly Swear under Articles at www.termlimits.com, where he signed the blatently unconstitutional Campaign Finance bill,
Four-and-a-half years after nine-eleven, if we have no idea who and where the illegals are, how can we possibly know how many Al Quaida vermin we have in our country, waiting for the signal to attack us within our shores, let alone where they might be. Amnesty is insane. With his four and a half years of ignoring the border issue and insulting the border volunteer Minute Men (calling these patriots “vigilantes), listening to advisor Karl Rove, who tries to pick up a few percentage points of Hispanic votes (he already had the legal Hispanics, perhaps he wants to let the illegals vote. Ironically, those would go to the Democrats anyway.)
In his following of Karl Rove, a feckless political advisor with short-term talents but no compass, Bush loved “not wisely, but too well.”
How monumentally sad for our nation, never mind Bush 43, who would be doing it to us with self-inflicted wounds.
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