There Are None So Blind...
...as those who will not see.
This afternoon Mort Kondracke, appearing on Special Report With Brit Hume's All-Star Panel, blamed the defeat of the immigration bill -- a "tragedy," in his words -- on "loudmouth" "nativists" (a slur Mort has used regularly since Day 1 on this issue) and the "Tom Tancredo wing" of the Republican party.
In response to more level-headed questioning from Brit Hume, Mort asserted that the many Americans speaking out against the bill were only against it because they only heard "negative" and "bad" things about the bill.
That's right, Mort, the American public is just too stupid and uninformed to truly understand what's in the bill. A bill, I would note, which was still being frantically written and rewritten throughout the entire process...yet I suspect the public tuned in to the Internet and talk radio knew more about the bill than many senators, Exhibit A being George Voinovich.
What a shame we don't all have your profound level of knowledge and understanding, Mort. You must be special because you alone seem capable of comprehending what's in the bill and why it's good for us. The rest of us are just uninformed loudmouthed nativists.
Sadly, Mort, who I rather like despite his liberal leanings, has once more displayed the contempt felt by typical Washingtonians toward the "little people" who don't know what's good for them.
One of my great frustrations regarding this issue is that those supporting the bill respond, as Mort has, from an emotional level, hurling insults. I'm still waiting for Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff to apologize for his comments that those opposing the bill would like to execute illegal aliens.
I'll put up a link to a Roundtable transcript when I can find one.
Update: More on Mort from California Conservative.
Friday Update: The transcript, posted at Real Clear Politics, is now at the subject link.
posted by Laura @ 4:41 PM
3 Comments:
The problem is that the Beltway insiders among the commentators and "journalists" and the politicians hold their collective noses when the common folk are around. They are particularly mad when the people did their job by writing, phoning and emailing the Senate to remind them HOW to do THEIR job...and WHO they work for.
This is how it is supposed to work, and so their automatic reaction is to disdain the public and say a collective "hurrumph" and sniff that we don't know what we are talking about.
Guess what. The Senate didn't know what it was talking about; they didn't even read the bill. And you know what? It is partly our own fault. We, as a people, have let them run roughshod over us for so long. For years, the most we've done is shake our heads and mutter how bad politicians are, while the pols are slapping backs and shaking hands when they've increased the pork barrel. The height of arrogance is assuming you know more about how the little guy lives and what he needs than the little guy himself.
I guess this was the thing that just finally ticked the little guy off enough to tell the Senate to stick where the sun don't shine.
Now if we can just deliver and follow through. The next step in our state should be to re-elect Jim DeMint and nominate and elect an actual conservative instead of Lindsay "Never met a border I didn't like" Graham.
(PS- sorry about the long comment. I'm actually working on a DVD review, so I had to vent but can't switch gears yet for a commentary.)
Mort complains we opposed the legislation without knowing what it was all about. Could that be because proponents were calling us racists instead of actually explaining why it may have been good legislation. This bill was doomed as much by the ugly nature of the arguments in favor of it as by the actual content. The other major killer of this was the legislative process. Remember the complaints months after the Patriot Act passed that it was so rushed that people had to vote on it without having a chance to read the final version. Well, at least that legislation was rushed because we were facing a national emergency. Immigration, while important, is no more urgent this year than last year. If we have ignored it for decades I have a hard time understanding why legislation has to be so rushed that no one can see the final product. My only conclusion is it must have been rushed precisely to ensure no one fully understood the details.
J.C. and Large Bill, I appreciate and agree with both of your thoughtful comments very much.
Best wishes,
Laura
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