Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t just be easier for a prominent Republican to publicly announce the following:
“The Republican party no longer wishes to pretend to want the votes of immigrants, legal or otherwise.” Oh, wait. One did:
Democrats knew they were embracing the touchy subject of immigration when they planned an afternoon press conference with three college students whose parents came to the United States illegally.
But they were stunned when Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), a presidential candidate who has made a name for himself as a hard-liner on immigration, called for the three students — all of whom have been in the United States for over a decade — to be arrested.
Douchebag is the only term that comes to mind.
After the press conference, Tancredo called the INS to rat out a cashier at a DC Taco Bell who said “Have a nice day” with a hint of an accent.
sherifffruitfly
I assume you’re joking about the Taco Bell bit. When we’re talking about republicans, it’s hard to tell.
kid bitzer
stay classy, tommy tank!
Delia
There is currently a contest in winger circles for biggest douchebag of the decade. The competition is very stiff, and just when one entrant feels sure of his or her grasp on the title, along comes another contestant with yet another stunning new example of douchebaggery that puts all previous efforts to shame. Little Tommy’s latest production is very fine, indeed, but I feel sure that in the next few days one of his compadres will manage to top him.
VidaLoca
Oh. Well. Good thing he didn’t say “happy holidays” or all hell would have broken loose.
S.W. Anderson
Hey, when your traction as a candidate graphs out looking much like a flat-line EKG, you’ve got to do something to generate buzz.
daniel rotter
Even if one agrees with what Tancredo did here, why didn’t he do the same with Elian Gonzales (Tancredo was already in the House of Representatives when the Gonzales story was happening)? Where’s the consistency?
jake
Well, I just moved Tommy Boy up my list of Candidates With a Career Killing Secret.
Beej
So accent=illegal immigrant, right? Good thing the 4th generation Americans of Czech ancestry that I grew up with didn’t live anywhere near Tancretin. Our county government made certain they had at least one person who could speak Czech on staff at all times. And this was in an area where most of those of Czech ancestry were at least 2nd generation Americans! Of course, they weren’t brown people, so I suppose that makes all the difference.
John, reading this blog is not good for me. The more I read about idiocy like this, the more I want to drink. Heavily.
Kg
It’s getting harder and harder for someone who is fiscally conservative, socially fairly liberal, and a rational hawk to have anything that resembles a political home.
r€nato
I’m all for the GOP making its tent ever smaller and more exclusive.
tBone
Bohemian Alps, Beej?
Re: Tancredo – what kind of name is that, anyway? Sounds suspicously foreign to me. Someone needs to check this guy’s bona fides. Quick! To the MalkinMobile!
Jess
It’s not THAT difficult–in the last few decades, which party has been more committed to protecting our freedoms and individual rights? Which has been most successful at lowering deficits, or at least not blowing them up out of control? Which has has been the more careful about leaping into battle, and more successful in actually accomplishing the mission? And which has more members who have actually served in the military, and has a better record for supporting the military (that is, walking the walk, not just talking about supporting the troops) (google “Who served”)?
Sounds like you’ve been listening to the spin rather than checking the record.
r€nato
thank you. This ‘they’re all the same’ crap irritates me to no end.
Jess
You’re quite welcome. I was just enjoying your contributions to the Ron Paul thread. : )
Jess
Speaking of being fiscally responsible, I just read this over at Crooks and Liars (sorry for not linking–for some reason I can never get it to happen correctly):
r€nato
…meanwhile, Alan Greenspan is running around telling anyone who will listen that we shouldn’t worry so much about the costs of endless war, as we should the cost of entitlements… even though, we would probably have the means to pay for them if a) Bush hadn’t given away the budget surplus to the rich in the form of tax cuts, b) the mother fucking war, and c) Bush signing the prescription drug bill, which is going to cost a LOT of money down the road.
I became a Democrat as soon as I was old enough to have a political consciousness, and in all that time I’ve seen absolutely no reason to change my mind, and every reason why the Republicans completely suck ass (and not in the good way).
Jess
Oooh, you’re bad!
Kg
The Dems aren’t much better, really. Particularly with the latest craze of universal health care, sorry if I don’t like the idea of the government becoming an HMO. In addition, there’s the whole 2nd Amendment issue that bugs me.
And don’t get me wrong, I don’t buy the “dime’s worth of difference” angle, either. I just have fundamental disagreements with the Dems over the proper role of government. And competency issues with the GOP.
The fact is, I’m likely to be called a RINO by a lot of my Republican friends, and if I were a Democrat, I’d likely be called a DINO.
Jess
Well, at least they’re not trying to shrink it to the size where it will just fit into our bedrooms…
As I said, I think you’re buying into the myths and spin, or getting put off by the less moderate members of the party (as I am too, but really they’re all complaining about how no one listens to them). If you look at the positions that actually have enough support to get some traction, I think you’ll find that the party has little resemblance to the 70s caricature. I recommend you check out the actual record.
I think we should also remember the importance of maintaining a balance of power–as a pragmatic moderate, I always try to factor that into my voting decisions. And usually vote Dem for that reason–it’s the only way to rein in some of the excesses we’ve been seeing.
Beej
tBone,
Yes, the Bohemian Alps. I lived down in the valley, went to school at the county seat. Great place to grow up.
Rick Taylor
And meanwhile they lecture you about how liberals just love to spend other peoples’s money.
John Rohan
Honestly reading this blog is not great for me either. The idiocy meter is off the scale. Some people don’t even bother to read the articles referenced here. If you did, you would see that:
1) The “Taco Bell” thing didn’t happen, John Cole made that up.
2) Tancredo also didn’t call for students to be arrested. He only notified ICE and said “I call on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency to detain any illegal aliens at this press conference”, which is, btw, their job. If the students had already received temporary permission to remain in the US (as the article claims), then they didn’t have anything to worry about.
Dennis-SGMM
Then it must be okay for me to call upon the FBI to arrest any terrorists at your home. If you aren’t a terrorist then you don’t have anything to worry about.
I’m strongly opposed to illegal immigration but what Tancredo did was pure political theater.
Mr. M'Choakumchild
Ha! Nothing like a little bureaucratic scrutiny over your life to give you a warm and fuzzy feeling. John, why don’t we get a branch of the federal government looking into your life, as a response to you exercising your first amendment rights, and see if you like it. And keep in mind that while dealing with said bureaucracy you have only those procedural rights that accrue under administrative law, not criminal law. And if the bureaucracy finds something questionable, it can have you thrown out of the country for life.
Nothing intimidating there…
jake
I assume you didn’t read the rest of the article:
Hmm. I suppose if you were desperate to be right, insane, a liar or some combination of the three, you could argue that he was talking about some other people in the room. But it sounds like Tank had already made the determination that they were illegals. Could he have had some inside information that no one else did?
Gee. Tommy could have made a few calls and found out that the students were not here illegally and stayed away, instead of bursting into the room screeching J’accuse!
But surely no elected official would conduct himself in such a bizarre and disgusting manner even when he knew he was flat out wrong, just to score a few political points, right John?
And did this galloping asshole even have INS agents with him at the time? If not, it is sort of like standing up in a movie theater and saying “I call on the police to arrest any one here who may or may not have broken the law!” Tankredo needs some Tranqs.
norbizness
Anybody seen that talking Taco Bell chihuahua recently? Well, at least we can give Tancredo some credit for disappearing him.
Pug
Joe Klein (yes, Joe Klein) starts his new article in Time with this:
It’s long been my belief that the GOP hole card in 2008 is going to be a rancid furriner-bashing anti-illegal-immigrant smear campaign. Make no mistake, whatever lipstick they put on this pig, the bottom line is the same old know-nothing nativism that has been a minor American stain since the Protestants began to get worried about the Irish Catholic surge in the 1840s (among some of our earliest settlers, the only acceptable immigrants were slaves).
He’s right, they’ve got nothing else. And, immigration being the perfect wedge issue that combines just enough legitimate concern with lots of racism, jingoism and fear, it will work beautifully for them.
Psycheout
Good catch, John. You really have to be on your toes around here.
John Cole, you should issue an apology to Tom Tancredo in writing and a formal retraction on the front page. Isn’t this kind of outright falsehood libel?
Actually, I thought something was fishy when a news search for Tancredo and Taco Bell only turned up article. And that was about some Colbert guy.
tBone
Thank God you’re here to point out the blindingly obvious. Until you showed up, I took every single thing John said literally.
Faux News
Don’t tase me hermano!
Zifnab
Not really. Immigration reform pits big business against the religo-racist nativists. You’re appeasing the votes at the expense of all your money. That’s a dangerous game to play. Big Business loves N5H1 Visas, cheap immigrant labor, and NAFTA. So do Democrats.
Go down Brown-Man hate road, and you’re going to be hemoraging all the giant piles of money that make up the foundation of the GOP.
Bombadil
That’s what I’ve been doing wrong — all this time I’ve been taking everything John said laterally!
No wonder my neck hurts.
Punchy
I see Colizzle had to dogizzle on the T-Bizzle. Asshizzle.
Bob In Pacifica
Maybe it sounded like “Half a nice day” and Tancredo thought he was entitled to a a whole nice day.
jcricket
Is there any issue where the GOP isn’t trying to: A) end up on the wrong side of history and B) alienate every possible voting bloc that’s growing (or that won’t vote for you no matter what)?
Here’s a quick list of questions you can ask yourself. If you answer yes to any of these questions, you can no longer (unless you hate yourself) be a Republican.
Gay? Friends of Gays? Don’t hate gays? Support gay marriage?
Immigrant? Like Immigrants? Don’t think all immigrants are Al Queda?
Athiest? Muslim? Don’t think all muslims are terr’ists?
Don’t speak English? Do speak english but don’t hate people that don’t?
Believe in Evolution? Global Warming?
Believe tax hikes might even theoretically be necessary for certain situations?
Believe we shouldn’t go to war with every country everywhere all the time?
Believe in universal healthcare/single-payer?
Republicans have so wedded themselves to fundamentalists Christians, hardcore anti-taxers (not even true Libertarians), and the racist vote that there’s just no way out for them on any of this stuff, short of completely re-inventing the party.
Anyone who says “Democrats are worse” or “there’s no home for me” just isn’t looking at the situation with open eyes. The Democratic party has some left-wingers (Kucinich), but on a national level is clearly the party of reality and pragmatism. You won’t get everything you want in it, but unless you are actually a “Big L” Libertarian or one of the aforementioned Republican core groups, I say vote Democrat to get most of what you want.
jcricket
Shoot, apropos the Ron Paul banning, I forgot to add a couple of things you can’t say “yes” to and still be a Republican
Believe in dissent? Especially regarding the President?
Believe torture isn’t OK?
And if I were being snarky, I might say: Believe in the privacy afforded by the constitution against illegal warrantless wiretapping?
John Cole
Wow.
Just, well, wow.
jcricket
The problem with the John Coles of the left is that we have a hard time telling their fact from fiction. He’s just like Beachamp.
John Rohan
In case you didn’t notice it, “Beej” the guy I was responding to, didn’t know it was a joke.
tBone
Another swing and a miss! But keep trying, I’m sure you’ll hit one out of the park sooner or later.
Psycheout
Still no retraction? Tick tock, tick tock….
Beej
Okay, so I admit to being sucked in. Problem is, it really sounded exactly like what some of these douchebags would do. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the truth from the snark.