Bush speech open thread: Hoy blogamos, mañana no votamos

posted at 10:34 am on May 15, 2006 by Allahpundit
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Update: Our affiliate, Bryan of Sanctuary, sends along this snapshot of “quality time”:

We’re ten hours away, but such is the anticipation that we thought we’d open a thread now. It’ll be updated throughout the day. If you’re not in front of a TV at 8 p.m., you can watch live over the web at the White House site or at C-SPAN. We’ll have video afterwards, of course.

The president had better pull a rabbit out of the hat tonight because no one’s buying his line on this issue anymore. Michelle has a serious case of Bush depression syndrome this morning; symptoms include a new Vent and this link extravaganza. PoliPundit’s disgusted, John Hawkins is dismissing the troops-on-the-border ploy as a “gimmick,” and Hugh Hewitt, of all people, is talking schism. Captain Ed soothes the savage beasts by noting that our best chance for real reform lies in the idiocy of open-borders advocates, which, thankfully, is plentiful.

Geraghty, ever the realist, answers angry conservatives who are threatening to stay home with the law of unintended consequences: in a word, RINO-plasty. Personally, I wouldn’t mind that with respect to some domestic issues. But this sure ain’t one of them.

Finally, Gateway Pundit beats me to the punch on a Bush drinking game. He forgot a few, though.

“Guests”/”guest workers” — one shot.
“Comprehensive immigration reform” — chug.
“My friend, Vicente Fox” — two shots.
“Mi amigo, Vicente Fox” — three shots.
If he overenunciates a Latino name — four shots.
If at any point he starts speaking Spanish — finish the six-pack.

Play along at home. I figure I’ll be unconscious by around ten after eight, so if there are no evening posts tonight, don’t wonder why.

Update: Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, says this might be the GOP’s last chance. And here’s an old report from CIS explaining how amnesty — duh — encourages illegal immigration.

Update: Forgot one for the drinking game: if he says illegals will have to “go to the end of the line” — drink. Kaus explains why.

Update: The big M will be on O’Reilly tonight to deliver her verdict. We’ll have video of that too.

Update: The Times of London puts it bluntly, and accurately. They neglect to mention that it’s not working. Moran, meanwhile, chooses to light a candle rather than curse the darkness by offering advice to Bush.

Geraghty’s piece at TKS, which I linked above, is starting to draw reaction from righty bloggers. Hewitt agrees with Jim, as does MacRanger, who cites this post as an example of Republican “whining”. Ace started out on the opposite side, writing, “The Republicans are going to lose in November, and I can’t say I’ll be tearing my hair out about it,” but he’s coming around to Geraghty’s position, too.

It’s a genuine dilemma, and all the more so as it relates to immigration. The Republican House is our best friend here; they’re the only ones holding the line against Bush and the Senate. Sitting out the election would mean not only punishing an ally, but possibly removing the last institutional obstacle to amnesty. And as Geraghty points out, it’s a lot harder to re-install a Republican majority once the Democrats are the incumbents.

On the other hand, if you spin Jim’s reasoning out to its logical conclusion, we should all be out at the polls, year after year, happily rubber-stamping the GOP no matter how bad they get provided that they remain somewhere to the right of Nancy Pelosi. Here’s my question back to him: what if we all turn out in November, the GOP keeps both houses, and then proceeds to drift further leftward still, with the result in ‘08 being a forty-seat swing in the House instead of fifteen or sixteen? How does that sound? How about President Rodham-Clinton on top of it, to ride herd?

Bill Quick has more.

Update: Powerline cites a Heritage Foundation study of the Hagel-Martinez proposal that would in theory allow 100 million people to enter the country over the next twenty years. Hot Air affiliate Ian Schwartz has video of Karl Rove telling the faithful we’ll be “just fine” in November.

Update: Corner mini-roundup. K-Lo fears the worst. Derbyshire expects gassy platitudes. Krikorian says Bush missed his Sistah Souljah moment.

Update: The Truth Laid Bear is keeping a running tally of those live-blogging tonight’s speech. Already RSVP’d: LaShawn Barber, James Joyner, John Hawkins, and Jay Stephenson.

Update: Powerline has excerpts of the speech. Scott Johnson doesn’t sound happy. Neither does Michelle. I’m going to tally up the number of drinks I’ll be having just based on these snippets.

Update: Using Gateway Pundit’s drinking-game rules and my addendum, I count one swig of Dos Equis, one chug, two tequila shots, and one hit from the beer bong.

Update: You’ve got to be kidding. Teddy’s worried that the House bill might “criminalize” … illegal immigrants.

Update: “Comprehensive immigration reform.” Drink!

Update: Captain Ed has seen the full speech and has the high points and low points here.

Update: 6,000 National Guard members for one year until the Border Patrol can be increased. No law enforcement powers.

Update: Glenn has the full speech.

Update: A temporary worker program — which calls for them to eventually return home. Is he kidding?

Update: There’s a “rational middle ground” between an automatic path to citizenship and mass deportation who have deep roots here. We’re going to send illegals … to the back of the line. Arrrrrgghh — see the Kaus link up top.

He’s talking about the melting pot now. In fairness, he did admit earlier that catch and release is a joke.

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