Excuse me, but most of you obviously have not taken the time to study the immigration legislation for which John McCain sought passage. I realize that most of you are not lawyers who are trained to study a piece of legislation, but if you don’t, you end up making glib statements that you think are true, but are not true at all and indeed wide of the mark.

The truth is that John McCain never did support amnesty. It is NOT denial on his part to say so; it was what he was saying during the debate over the immigration bill. The immigraiton bill for which he sought passage was not on its face amnesty and would not be amensty IF the law enforcement provisions were enforced. The problem is that just as with the immigration bill that Ronald Reagan signed into law back in the 1980’s was not amnesty on its face but the way that the 1980’s law worked was that the law enforcement provisions were not enforced (thus creating the present immigration problem), the way that most Americans expected this year’s bill to work would be that the law enforcement provisions would not be enforced. The outcome of this year’s debate was that law enforcement comes first, and John McCain has bene sayibf for months that he got and accepts that message. I saw him say it at a function in Manhattan in late September. It is the message that no matter what position you took on this year’s bill is the one to which an honest assessment of the debate should lead you.

Keep in mind that the current problem that we have with immigration stems from legislation that Ronald Reagan signed into law. I think that world of Ronald Reagan because of his leadership on a great number of issues, and I think the world of John McCain for many reasons. John McCain was right about Iraq and stood steadfast in his support of the troops and their mission while Democxrats declared defeat and other Republicans were hedging their bets: I greatly appreciated that act of corage and character because my older son is a U.S. Army First Lieutenant (with Ranger tab) who for 15 months (until last October) served as an infantry platoon leader in Iraq and I lnow what an outstanding job our military men and women have been doing. What John McCain, a pro-life fiscal conservative, brings to the table concerning, among other things, military and national security matters is hugely important. Recent events in Pakistan only reinforces the need in 2008 that we elect the best Comamander in Chief we can, and that person is clearly John McCain.

Phil Byler on December 30, 2007 at 7:24 PM