Podhoretz Gets Taken Down

One of the leading voices for "amnesty" is a fellow named Podhoretz, who also happens to be a leading Neocon--you know, the Big Gummint "conservative" types who have led GWB to a 30% poll-ranking.

With that accomplishment under his belt, Podhoretz takes on those who would suggest that "amnesty" is a blunder, which would facilitate the election of The Hildebeeste:

As for dealing with the illegals already here, there's a sense in which this debate has been radicalized to such an extent that the Right won't be satisfied with a policy that does not explicitly advocate expulsion — all other policies being dubbed "amnesty" and therefore illegitimate — while the Left refuses to consider any policy other than special-treatment affirmative-action line-jumping legalization.

In other words, there is nothing our politicians can do, absolutely nothing, to satisfy the activists — because neither extreme will be reflected in any kind of law or policy that emerges even from a Washington energized to deal with them.

If a more sober reckoning of political reality does not intrude here, the Right will hurtle headlong toward schism, division, a third party and all sorts of other "pox on all your houses" actions. The cost of this is what I detail in the direst parts of my book Can She Be Stopped? — the easy transfer of power on Capitol Hill and the White House to the Democrats, and particularly to Hillary Clinton.

It's doubtful the policies she will follow as president on immigration will please anyone on the Right. It's certain that the policies she will follow on courts, on social issues, on foreign policy, on taxes, on regulation and on almost everything else you can think of will be deeply displeasing to people on the Right. And then, as a result of the pursuit of an impossible policy of purity on immigration, the country and the world will suffer the consequences. The potential for self-destruction is terrifying. The potential for grave national harm is worse. Please, you guys, pull back from the edge.

His interlocutor, a very bright fellow, "Vox"--takes him apart.

Mr. Podhoretz's first problem here is that granting anything except expulsion is an amnesty for an illegal alien. If a thief steals a car, it would be considered outrageous to let him keep it as long as he agreed to take care of it for two years, in fact, it would be considered outrageous to let him keep it even if he served a short jail sentence

Even more outrageous, however, is Podhoretz's attempt to shift the blame from those who created and exacerbated the situation to those who are angered by it and are motivated to bring it to an end. Pro-immigration Republicans have no one but themselves to blame if the Lizard Queen outmanuevers them and steals a very popular position from them, and they will be among those Republicans most responsible for her victory, not those who rightly refuse to support a majority party that has repeatedly refused to respect their political positions.

Vox nails it here:

They are mere tacticians, not strategists, which is why they consistently fail to see the big picture.

This comment is echoed in Wisconsin's morass (also referred to as the Legislature.) The "big picture" is tossed aside for highly partisan purposes, and the Public Interest (you can look it up--I know it's an old term) is sacrificed.

With VERY few exceptions, by the way, this "tactician" stuff began with Tommy Thompson.