Topic category:  Other/General

Mr. President, you have a problem. A huge problem. Popular radio host Laura Ingraham, who did what Hillary tried and failed to do and passed the bar exam the first time (as well as clerked for a United States Supreme Court Justice), and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, who made presidents sound presidential, have pronounced your proposed immigration policy a disaster for America, the conservative coalition and you.

In the center of Ms. Ingraham's website is this message: "SAY NO TO AMNESTY IN DISGUISE! Call your Congressman and Senators. Tell them you do not support the Senate's 'bipartisan immigration reform bill.' Tell them you will not vote to reelect anyone who ties the issues of border enforcement and legalization together in one bill. Border enforcement first! When we as Americans verify over a number of years that this has been done, we can consider plans for those who have lived here illegally for several years."

Ms. Ingrahm's "Read It or Weep" article is "Too Bad," by Peggy Noonan.

Mr. President, for you, it's not "too bad." It's terrible.

In 2000, Republicans selected you over Senator John McCain, because Senator McCain was not conservative enough. It was NOT expected that you would join with Senator McCain AND Senator Ted Kennedy to reward illegal immigration. It was NOT expected that your parents would "adopt" Bill Clinton and you would heep praise on Senator Kennedy (who has worked hard to turn the liberation of Iraq into an ignominous defeat for America and political plus for the Far Left secular extremist Democrats), as you did in...Mexico City!

Ms. Noonan put it plainly, Mr. President: you've "torn the conservative coalition asunder." (Note: That's a bad thing!)

Ms. Noonan: "What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them. What President Bush is doing, and has been doing for some time, is sundering a great political coalition. This is sad, and it holds implications not only for one political party but for the American future."

Mr. President, you're not to blame for the War on Terror or the Democrats' refusal to let Social Security be saved during a Republican administration, but you are to blame for not enforcing the immigration laws, for pretending that amnesty is not amnesty and for impugning the integrity of those who really do support the rule of law.

Ms. Noonan speculated why you are sundering the conservative coalition: "The White House doesn't need its traditional supporters anymore, because its problems are way beyond being solved by the base. And the people in the administration don't even much like the base. Desperate straits have left them liberated, and they are acting out their disdain. Leading Democrats often think their base is slightly mad but at least their heart is in the right place. This White House thinks its base is stupid and that its heart is in the wrong place."

Democrats habitually suggest that Republican Presidents are not smart (prime examples: Eisenhower, Reagan, Ford and you, Mr. President). You're proving them right on immigration.

Ms. Noonan noted that for some time your conservative supporters have been told "too bad" when they complained about "endless gushing spending... that assumes a high and unstoppable affluence will always exist, and the tax receipts will always flow in,"expanding governmental authority and power" and "the war."

You could explain that you were doing your best in difficult circumstances, but on immigration you have gone too far, Mr. President. As Ms. Noonan noted, "on immigration it has changed from 'Too bad' to 'You're bad.'"

Ms. Noonan explained: "The president has taken to suggesting that opponents of his immigration bill are unpatriotic--they 'don't want to do what's right for America.' His ally Sen. Lindsey Graham [Senator McCain's idea of a 2008 vice presidential candidate?] has said, 'We're gonna tell the bigots to shut up.' On Fox last weekend he vowed to 'push back.' Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff suggested opponents would prefer illegal immigrants be killed; Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said those who oppose the bill want 'mass deportation.' Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson said those who oppose the bill are 'anti-immigrant' and suggested they suffer from 'rage' and 'national chauvinism.'"

Not wise, Mr. President. And definitely not fair. My wife is an immigrant (legal and Latin American), so I find the "anti-immigrant" charge ludicrous.

Ms. Noonan asked and answered the obvious question:

"Why would they speak so insultingly, with such hostility, of opponents who are concerned citizens? And often, though not exclusively, concerned conservatives? It is odd, but it is of a piece with, or a variation on, the 'Too bad' governing style. And it is one that has, day by day for at least the past three years, been tearing apart the conservative movement.

"I suspect the White House and its allies have turned to name calling because they're defensive, and they're defensive because they know they have produced a big and indecipherable mess of a bill--one that is literally bigger than the Bible, though as someone noted last week, at least we actually had a few years to read the Bible. The White House and its supporters seem to be marshalling not facts but only sentiments, and self-aggrandizing ones at that. They make a call to emotions--this is, always and on every issue, the administration's default position--but not, I think, to seriously influence the debate.

"They are trying to lay down markers for history. Having lost the support of most of the country, they are looking to another horizon. The story they would like written in the future is this: Faced with the gathering forces of ethnocentric darkness, a hardy and heroic crew stood firm and held high a candle in the wind. It will make a good chapter. Would that it were true!"

Ms. Noonan made a compelling case that you have been "unwise," Mr. President.

Ms. Noonan: "What I came in time to believe is that the great shortcoming of this White House, the great thing it is missing, is simple wisdom. Just wisdom--a sense that they did not invent history, that this moment is not all there is, that man has lived a long time and there are things that are true of him, that maturity is not the same thing as cowardice, that personal loyalty is not a good enough reason to put anyone in charge of anything, that the way it works in politics is a friend becomes a loyalist becomes a hack, and actually at this point in history we don't need hacks."

Mr. President, Ms. Noonan even pointed out that you were sundering your party, like your father did:

"[T]he Bushes, father and son, though different in many ways, are great wasters of political inheritance. They throw it away as if they'd earned it and could do with it what they liked. Bush senior inherited a vibrant country and a party at peace with itself. He won the leadership of a party that had finally, at great cost, by 1980, fought itself through to unity and come together on shared principles. Mr. Bush won in 1988 by saying he would govern as Reagan had. Yet he did not understand he'd been elected to Reagan's third term. He thought he'd been elected because they liked him. And so he raised taxes, sundered a hard-won coalition, and found himself shocked to lose his party the presidency, and for eight long and consequential years. He had many virtues, but he wasted his inheritance.

"Bush the younger came forward, presented himself as a conservative, garnered all the frustrated hopes of his party, turned them into victory, and not nine months later was handed a historical trauma that left his country rallied around him, lifting him, and his party bonded to him. He was disciplined and often daring, but in time he sundered the party that rallied to him, and broke his coalition into pieces. He threw away his inheritance. I do not understand such squandering."

Do you, Mr. President?

I hope you quickly come to understand "such squandering" AND amnesty.

J.J. Jackson, a libertarian conservative author who has been writing and promoting individual liberty since 1993 and is President of Land of the Free Studios, Inc., has helpfully explained, in an article entitled "Is it Amnesty? You Bet Your Sweet Bippy!," why the immigration bill is an amnesty bill, even though you say it is not, Mr. President.

Mr. Jackson:

"One thing I have learned over the years is that there are plenty of Chomsky-esque, center-right leaning wordsmiths out there too. It isn't just those on the left that are abusing the poor English skills of Americans to promote socialist agendas. Believe it. Particularly when it comes to the latest attempt at giving amnesty (and the current comprehensive immigration bill in the Senate IS Amnesty). And I can prove it by simply using the words as they are defined, not as some would like them to be defined.

"Let’s begin shall we?

"Amnesty is defined as the act of an authority (as a government) by which pardon is granted to a large group of individuals (source: Webster’s Dictionary). What we find at issue here is usually the word pardon and its meaning. Ok, what does pardon mean?

"Once again we turn to Webster’s Dictionary to find that pardon means 1 : INDULGENCE, 2 : the excusing of an offense without exacting a penalty, 3 a : a release from the legal penalties of an offense b : an official warrant of remission of penalty, 4 : excuse or forgiveness for a fault, offense, or discourtesy (source: Webster's).

"Ok, so we’ve got several definitions for that word, three of which basically say the same thing and summed up in the single word of the first meaning, indulgence. That makes the definition of amnesty the act of an authority (as a government) by which indulgence is granted to a large group of individuals. Ok, what is an indulgence?

"Indulgence, as defined by Webster’s is 1 : remission of part or all of the temporal and especially purgatorial punishment that according to Roman Catholicism is due for sins whose eternal punishment has been remitted and whose guilt has been pardoned (as through the sacrament of reconciliation), 2 : the act of indulging : the state of being indulgent, 3 a : an indulgent act b : an extension of time for payment or performance granted as a favor, 4 a : the act of indulging in something; especially : SELF-INDULGENCE b : something indulged in.

"Also, to indulge means to treat with excessive leniency, generosity, or consideration.

"So an indulgence is an excuse or way out (synonym: lenient). It is a forgiveness (as definition 1 states) of part or all of a punishment through generosity or consideration and leniency. So indulgence is basically when part or all of the punishment has been remitted giving us amnesty defined as: the act of an authority (as a government) by which part or all of the punishment has been remitted to a large group of individuals.

"Notice that an indulgence is when part OR all of the punishment is remitted. The important word here is part. Because the right leaning Chomsky wanna-bes would have us believe that amnesty only occurs when all of the sins and transgressions of illegals are forgiven and only when they are not required to pay anything or have any punishments dealt to them for their actions. They claim that because there are new penalties and procedures, which still require some punishment to be meted out, that this cannot possibly be amnesty.

"But we can clearly see they are wrong. Existing law requires certain punishments and measures to be taken against those in this country illegally. Giving them a way out of those punishments through what amounts to the purchasing of indulgences certainly DOES remit part of the punishment that is required of them under current laws.

"We can play word games all we want, but we cannot rewrite the facts.

"That the definition of one word can be inserted into the definition of another word defined by using it is a pretty basic skill; one that we all learned in grade school. And it clearly defines the act of rewriting the current laws for which certain punishments are due to change that punishment as indeed being amnesty.

"So sorry to all you out there that cannot understand that, including you Mr. Bush. The fact is the current law has penalties and this Senate bill serves the purpose of granting illegal aliens a means of obtaining amnesty from those penalties. Period."

Mr. President, when Senator Kennedy is pleased with you and Peggy Noonan and Laura Ingraham are profoundly distressed, it's a sure sign you're terribly mistaken.

Michael J. Gaynor

Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.