The first was by the Washington Post Editors, and was clearly designed by them to help their liberal friends trying to win election in the fall by misleading their readers about the motives and operation of the mostly Republican effort. Excerpts from The Immigrant-Bashing Tack:
In their desperation for a vote-getter, they have seized on the whipping boy of illegal immigration, which they blame for ills ranging from the erosion of the commonwealth's values to the difficulty of being admitted to state colleges.
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A week earlier, he unveiled the GOP's immigrant-bashing agenda for the legislative session that will begin in January. Among other measures, it would bar publicly funded colleges and universities from accepting undocumented aliens -- even those who have graduated from state elementary, middle and high schools.
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It's an ugly strategy and certainly not one unique to Virginia. It seeks to distract voters from core state issues such as transportation, fiscal prudence and good governance. But bigotry-mongering's day in Virginia is long past, and voters in the state have shown little disposition to reward candidates who extol intolerance.
A second opinion, written by George W. Grayson, who was a Democratic Virginia House Delegate for 27 years. His opinion is also meant to help Democrats in Virginia defeat the Republicans. But he does so NOT by bashing the Republicans, but by largely AGREEING with them, and calling on the Democrats to stop ignoring the illegal immigrant problem before it is too late. Excertps from his column, "Immigration Myopia in Virginia":
For Virginia's Democrats to cede the issue of illegal immigration to Republicans in this fall's legislative contests would be as socially irresponsible as it would be politically myopic.
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Although they are denigrated as "xenophobes," "racists" and "nativists" by special pleaders, local leaders are responding to concerns about school crowding, emergency-room access, neighborhoods blighted by old vehicles, trash-strewn yards, houses bulging with occupants, ubiquitous signs in Spanish and the proliferation of gangs.
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No such "timeouts" [in immigration] have occurred since the 1965 immigration law, which fostered the continuous influx of millions of Hispanics, many of whom live in linguistic enclaves perpetuated by the English-as-a-second-language lobby.
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Although the United States legally admits almost 1 million prospective citizens each year, illegal aliens have broken the line, thrusting themselves ahead of men and women who have filled out myriad forms and followed the rules and expected to receive fair play in return.
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It's not a Fairfax County lawyer or a Richmond businessperson whose wages and job opportunities are threatened by the mushrooming number of unlawful aliens. Instead, it's housekeepers, construction workers, hospitality industry employees and child-care providers, who feel abandoned when the party of Truman, Kennedy and Roosevelt elevates the interests of lawbreakers over the well-being of these forgotten blue- and pink-collar citizens.
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In fact, such vapid sloganeering means that "African Americans have been left devoid of a strong black voice in Congress on a topic [illegal immigration] that affects them deeply, given their high unemployment rates and historic struggle to get quality housing, health care, education and other goods and services," writes Vanderbilt University professor Carol Swain, who happens to be black.
It's easy to see who has thought this thing out, and who is just screaming racism to win votes. Grayson has this largely right, and one wonders if this bit of rational thinking has something to do with the fact that he's a FORMER Democratic lawmaker.
We know that when a Democrat does something sensible, (like Lambert last year noting the good things Allen had done for minorities in the state), the Democratic party usually throws those people out of office.
Meanwhile, it was nice of the Post I guess to allow a Democrat to put the lie to their own editorial attacking Republicans for caring about the rule of law and the future of the citizens of Virginia which is threatened by the increasing number of illegal immigrants among our ranks.
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