Bush on Immigration

For the first time in six years I actually watched a speech by George W. Bush. I confess I only watched it because I thought he would fall flat on his face. It was a tricky subject. For days this speech was touted as an important speech on the problem of immigration, especially Mexican immigration. How would Bush handle it? How could he please his ultra-right base that wants all illegal immigrants labeled as felons while at the same time pleasing the more sane members of the United States? What would he say? Would he take a genuine leadership role? Would he continue to insist on a guest worker program? Amnesty? Whatever. Actually, I thought he did pretty well, everything considered:
He appeared to be very clean. He must have had a recent shower.
He wore a nice suit (one of his $2000 jobs, no doubt).
His makeup was fine
His tie was nicely knotted (Laura?)
He read his 17 minute speech flawlessly off the teleprompter (he has really improved at this over the years).
He even seemed, for a change, to understand what he was reading (I found this a pleasant surprise).

So what did he say? Did he demonstrate the leadership that everyone said we needed on this monumental issue? Well:
He said immigration was a problem
He said it was imperative to act (why this is imperative is not clear as it has been going on for decades with nothing but benign neglect)
I guess it is now imperative because it has become a viable political issue and, as a political issue, cannot be ignored.
As a response to this (now suddenly emergency issue) we will send 6000 National Guard troops to the Mexican border.
It is not very clear what they will do, but they will not be actively engaged in actually arresting anyone, detaining anyone, or otherwise acting as law-enforcement personnel. They will simply offer "support" to the border patrols. And yes, we have enough National Guardsmen to do this without negatively affecting other duties, such as getting murdered in Iraq, dealing with floods and national disasters, and so on.
And, this is to be simply a temporary measure, until another 6000 border patrolsmen (or women) can be trained and funded (where the money is coming from to do this has not been discussed. No doubt we will just borrow another billion or so from China).

Having now effectively gained control of our border:
How to deal with the millions of illegal aliens already here without labeling them and all who support them as felons subject to deportation (how you might arrest and deport eleven or more million individuals when you are stone broke is not too clear).
Furthermore, if you were to deport them all who would provide the cheap labor necessary to keep a lid on decent wages? We'd have to have a guest worker program (as far as I know all guest worker programs have failed dismally).
But what about those aliens who have been here for a long time, have families, homes, pay taxes, and so on? Well, if they qualify, and if they pay a $2000 fine for having entered illegally, and if they learn to speak English, and whatever, they can eventually "earn" citizenship.
But this would constitute "amnesty" critics say. No it wouldn't say Bush and his supporters (all three of them).
Except for a very brief mention of it he said nothing about enforcing the laws against hiring illegal aliens (can't upset the corporate masters).

In other words, Bush said nothing that has not been said for days on end. He provided no leadership, no new or viable ideas, no solution other than a temporary band aid that probably won't even be funded. He will not even have satisfied his racist, fundamentalist "base." He will have, for the moment, done nothing at all. But, hey, things could be worse (maybe).

On another front, have you noticed that nothing can be investigated anymore? Not Libby, not NSA, not 9/11, not anything, because anything you want to investigate these days involves sensitive national security secrets that cannot be compromised. How convenient. I guess this means we will never be able to investigate Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, or anyone else in this Administration. How wonderful for them. But don't you feel that maybe you might be just a bit "short-changed?"

Hillary and McCain, I fear, in their quest for power, have both gone completely "off the dead end." Can't someone tell them, politely or not, they have already "flunked out?" If they haven't the American electorate has - again.