"Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." - George Wallace, from his 1963 inaugural speech as Governor of Alabama.
"No amnesty today, no amnesty tomorrow, no amnesty ever." - New York Times editorial, June 9th, 2007, describing opponents of the proposed immigration law.
If you oppose the proposed immigration law that, "pathway to citizenship" aside, would immediately give legal status to millions of illegal immigrants, you're not merely wrong. In the eyes of the New York Times, you're a knuckle-dragging nativist, no better than hard-core segregationists of the Jim Crow era.
That is the message of A Failure of Leadership, the Times' editorial of today, lamenting the collapse Thursday in the Senate of the immigration bill.
As noted at the top, the Times employs a variation on Wallace's ode to segregation to slur the bill's opponents, whom the Times labels "the anti-immigrant hard-core." Adds the Gray Lady, "like nativists of generations past, they think the country is being Latinized, and they fear it." And just for good measure, in case anyone missed the contempt in which the tens of millions of Americans from all walks of life who oppose this bill, the Times dubs them "the phobic right."
The Times unwittingly confirms that opponents were right to suspect that whatever teeth this bill ever had would ultimately be extracted. It writes:
The tragedy is that the compromise bill was written to bring these restrictionists along, with punitive, detestable provisions that many supporters of comprehensive reform agreed to endorse for the sake of a “grand bargain.” The bill was badly flawed but fixable.
Translation: give Ted Kennedy & Co. time, and the enforcement provisions would be gutted while the borders would remain open.
Opponents of this bad bill will wear the Times' opprobrium as a badge of honor.
Contact Mark at mark@gunhill.net
