Muzzled by Juan Williams

Author:Juan Williams
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307952035
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2011-07-26T10:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

IMMIGRATION, TERROR BABIES, AND VIRTUAL FENCES

WELL AFTER GEORGE W. BUSH LEFT OFFICE, once he’d escaped the punishing grip of right-wing bullies enforcing their brand of politically correct ideas and speech codes on him, here is what the conservative Republican president dared to say about the repeated breakdown of government eff orts to resolve the national crisis over immigration.

“I not only differ from my own party but the other party as well,” the former president said in a C-SPAN TV interview. “The reason immigration reform died was because of a populism that had emerged.” The news here is that the former president was willing to point to his own party’s culpability for wasting time with political posturing that stalled much-needed national action on a serious issue.

The former president strained to walk a fine line, pointing a finger at Democrats as well as Republicans for not reaching agreement on immigration. But the “populism” he blamed was almost completely to be found on right-wing talk radio and among the most conservative voices in Congress. When the former president let it be known that even as the most powerful man in Washington he had been unable to act in America’s best interest because of “a populism that had emerged,” anyone paying attention drew an inescapable conclusion. In his heart Bush blamed bitter, frenzied talk by extremists in his own party. Extremists impose a cancerous form of political correctness that demands conformity and kills any possibility of a reasoned approach to immigration reform and other issues.

“The failure of immigration reform points out larger concerns about the direction of our politics,” President Bush wrote in his memoir. “The blend of isolationism, protectionism, and nativism that affected the immigration debate also led Congress to block free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. I recognize the genuine anxiety that people feel about foreign competition. But our economy, our security, and our culture would all be weakened by an attempt to wall ourselves off from the world.”

“What is interesting about our country, if you study history, is that there are some ‘isms’ that occasionally pop up,” President Bush explained in the TV interview on C-SPAN. “One is isolationism and its evil twin, protectionism, and its evil triplet, nativism. So if you study the twenties, for example, there was an America-first policy that said, ‘Who cares what happens in Europe?’ … My point is that we’ve been through this kind of period of isolationism, protectionism, and nativism. I’m a little concerned that we may be going through the same period. I hope these ‘isms’ pass.”

The former president’s remarks set off the right-wing talk-show hosts. One conservative pundit, Laura Ingraham, said that “to say that it’s all about hostility to foreigners is ludicrous.… Maybe President Bush was right. We are suffering from an outbreak of isms. Elitism comes to mind.”

It was just the kind of attack Bush had experienced when he tried to grapple with the issue of immigration as president. Those on the extreme Right labeled him

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