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Tancredo goes over the edge
PALM BEACH, Fla. President Bush believes America should be more of an idea than an actual place, a Republican congressman told WND in an exclusive interview."People have to understand what we're talking about here. The president of the United States is an internationalist," said Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo. "He is going to do what he can to create a place where the idea of America is just that it's an idea. It's not an actual place defined by borders. I mean this is where this guy is really going." . . . "I know this is dramatic or maybe somebody would say overly dramatic but I'm telling you, that everything I see leads me to believe that this whole idea of the North American Union, it's not something that just is written about by right-wing fringe kooks. It is something in the head of the president of the United States, the president of Mexico, I think the prime minister of Canada buys into it. . . ." "And that's just for starters. Think of what'll happen when they flouridate the water! . . ." Other conservative commentators, including many who favor stricter immigration restrictions, think he's gone bat-looney. John Podhoretz at National Review: I speculate in my book, Can She Be Stopped?, that Tancredo will run as a third-party candidate in 2008. Sounds like he'd be perfect to top Lyndon LaRouche's ticket. If you are serious about the importance of immigration restriction, you'd best be looking for a leader who hasn't chosen to place himself beyond the political fringe. Allahpundit, posting at Michelle Malkin's "Hot Air" blog: Id hoped never to have to serenade TT with our official conspiracy-theory theme song. But I fear the hour has arrived. "Captain Ed" Morissey: George Bush may not have responded very well to immigration concerns from his base, but he's done more than his father, Bill Clinton, and even Ronald Reagan in bolstering border security. Tancredo is engaging in mindless demagoguery with these doomsday descriptions, and moving closer to the realms of paranoia. Here's my $0.02: 1. Immigration is not a hot button for me the way it is for a lot of others here in the 'Burg. If this were one of my causes, I'd be damned upset at Tancredo for flying off into Lyndon LaRouche territory in a black helicopter, because he's one of the "leaders" of the restrictionist position, and this sort of nonsense discredits the whole movement by association. If there's a rational case to be made for stricter border control (and I think there is, mind you), one might reasonably ask why Tancredo has to resort to wild-ass conspiracy theories. 2. On a more basic level, Tancredo is making the same fundamental mistake as Pat Buchanan. The United States is not, and never has been, a blood and soil nation. It is founded on a set of shared ideas, not on ethnicity. I'm not ethnically Japanese, so even if I were to relocate to Osaka, become fluent in the language, drink tea, eat sushi, admire the cherry blossoms, and become a naturalized citizen of Japan, I'd still be a gaijin. On the other hand, any Japanese person who subscribes to the American idea can move here, become a naturalized citizen, and he and his kid will be just as "American" as the rest of us. Indeed, the world is full of "Americans born in the wrong place." George Bush understands this. Tom Tancredo appears not to. Michelle Malkin, Bobby Jindal, Michael Steele, Alberto Gonzalez, Rick Santorum, Garo Ypremian, Lance Cpl. Noe Mezarodriguez, the Hmong girl running the cash register at Rainbow's, the naturalized Mexican guy up on the roof with a nail gun--they're just as American as you, me, and Tom Tancredo. Posted by: Mike 2006-11-23 |
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