[Sailormon6]

Originally Posted by camaraderie

Sailorman6...I'm gonna disagree with you. Bush has absolutely deserted the party on immigration issues and if we want the next Republican President (or the current candidates) to take real action...we need to make not doing so painful. The dems may criticize Bush on immigration but from an even more liberal viewpoint. Closing our borders and getting illegals out of our country is the 2nd biggest task facing any new president. Sorry...but I've been greatly disappinted by Bush on this and many other issues and the BIG danger for repubs in the coming election is that the general electorate thinks THIS is what republicans do when they get into office.
Dems criticize other dems all the time...hell, Cindy Sheehan is running against Pelosi!!
Silence is the biggest danger to any political party.

Cam, our porous Mexican border isn't a new condition. It has been porous since long before the Alamo. No president or congress in my lifetime has shown the slightest interest in securing the border, and most Americans didn't give much thought to it, either. If we decide to secure the Mexican border, how will we do it, how much is it going to cost, and will the same Republicans who are complaining about busting the budget going to be willing to foot the bill? And, oh by the way, what are we going to do about our Canadian border? Are we going to let it remain porous, so that terrorists can pass through it at will? The Canadian border is reputed to be the longest unsecured border in the world? How will we secure it, and how much more is that going to cost? And, when those borders are finally secured, how do we improve the security of all our coasts, including the Great Lakes, so that their security is on a par with the land borders? Oh yeah, we also need to secure our ports, so that contraband can't be transported into the US by ships and planes.

People really are funny. They can be completely unaware of a long-standing problem for a century or so, but when it finally occurs to them that there's a problem, suddenly that problem becomes their biggest, most urgent concern, even though they didn't give it a moment's thought until a year or so ago.

But, let's get down to the crux of the matter. What do you expect of the President? Isn't it enough that he won three wars, removed both the Taliban and Saddam Hussein from power, defused the North Korean nuclear threat (peacefully, I might add), secured this country from terrorism, and generated a vibrant economy? (To quote you, Cam, "THIS is what Republicans do when they get into office.") Do Republicans have a right to expect him to do all that on the cheap, without increasing the national debt, or is that simply the realistic cost of those achievements? Moreover, do they have a right to expect him to find a solution for all our other problems that have existed for two centuries or more, even though millions of smart people have been trying, unsuccessfully, to find a solution to the same problems? Your expectations are too high. He's not a God. He's a mere mortal. After creating the world in six days, even the Good Lord needed to rest on the seventh! Give the poor man a break! If a man is only capable of running a 7 minute mile, you can beat him as much as you want, and he still won't be able to run a four minute mile. You're "beating" him, in the hope that, if you beat him severely enough he'll solve the immigration problem, but that's unrealistic. The problem is too complex and too long-standing to have a quick, simple solution. Any solution is going to require not only substantial agreement among the members of the House, Senate and White House, but also among our citizens, a large percentage of whom happen to be of Latin-American descent. That's going to be a daunting task.

Like you, I am a believer that you often have to hold a person's feet to the fire, if you want him to do his best work, but if you are unrealistic about your expectations, all you will succeed in doing is burning his feet, and crippling him, thereby preventing him from continuing his good work.

By turning over the control of Congress and the White House to the Democrats, do you really think you're helping to find a solution to the immigration problem?

One more friendly word of advice...never...never...never cite Cindy Sheehan in support of any proposition.