Restrictionists Going Nuts Over Immigration Reform, Again.

The House GOP, it appears, is finally getting serious about
doing something
lame (as Ed Krayewski
explained this morning) to reform our
inhumane and irrational immigration system. So, naturally,
restrictionists have started spilling vast quantities of fake bile
and warning GOP leaders of dire consequences if they don’t cease
and desist.

The peerless (thank god) Ann Coulter got the ball rolling.
She didn’t take the tack of Republican
“pussies” who limit their opposition to illegal immigration. No
siree. She wants a war on all immigrants – even the good, high
skilled variety – lest they ruin America forever. How? By voting
against Republicans. “Immigrants — all immigrants — have always
been the bulwark of the Democratic Party,” she harrumphs.

Setting aside the fact that 45-plus percent of Hispanics voted
for George W. Bush, what’s bad for Republicans is ipso facto bad
for America? Got it.

Famous nativist and Zullu-basher
Pat Buchanan
chimed in on Laura Ingraham’s radio show that House Speaker
John Boehner would sing his “last hurrah” if he pushed for reform.
“You will have a war inside the Republican party — a Balkan war —
this year,” he snorted.

So the way for Republicans to maintain peace is by continuing a
war on immigrants? Got that too.

Implacable immigration foe Sen. Jeff Sessions
accused the House’s leadership of – horror of horrors! –
consulting with “Democrat activists” before their own
obstructionist members in their  “rush to pass an immigration
bill.”

 Rush.

A reform effort that has been in the works since at least 2006
(when George W. Bush first proposed) is a rush job? The good
senator obviously has a watch in geological time. But,
whatever.

Meanwhile, the National Review
predictably declared any reform effort that did not first erect
a Berlin Wall on the Rio Grande as a “fraud” on the American
people.

Less predictably, however, the Weekly Standard, which
used to once have sensible views on immigration, seconded that
sentiment
claiming that reformers were playing “skeptics for fools” by
even considering any form of legalization before the borders are
sealed.

Such pre-emptive biliousness against reforms has worked well for
restrictionists in the past. But how long can they go on without
getting acid reflux?

My pieces on how Republicans can stay the party of limited
government and still win minorities a la Canada’s Tory Party

here and
here.