Immigration reform prospects

It may be accurate enough as political commentary. But I found the opening dialogue between Sleepy Mark Shields and Bush II hack Michael Gerson on the 05/13/2011 PBS Newshour to be tiresomely cynical on the prospects for immigration reform:



From the transcript:

JIM LEHRER: And to the analysis of Shields and Gerson. That's syndicated columnist Mark Shields, Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson. David Brooks is off tonight.

Picking up on what Secretary Napolitano told Judy, Mark, where do you see the prospects for immigration reform in the short run?

MARK SHIELDS: I see it more politically than I do statutorily, Jim.

I mean, the reality is that there -- first of all, there's not going to be a major immigration bill pass the Congress between now and Election Day.

JIM LEHRER: Why not?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, for a whole host of reasons. I mean, one is, it's not on anybody's agenda. And, secondly, there's no consensus.

The party -- the Republican Party has moved from the position of President Bush, who was -- worked with people like Sen. Kennedy, and who, by the way, got 43 percent of the Latino vote in 2004. In 2008, that fell down to 31 percent for John McCain, 67 percent for Barack Obama.

It's -- at 16 percent in the census, they are now the largest minority in the country, Latinos are. And one -- almost one out of four people in this country under the age of 17 is Latino. So, it's politically important, especially in states like Nevada and New Mexico and Gov. Napolitano's Arizona, in New Mexico, Colorado. Those are important -- that's an important vote. So, it's going to get attention, but it's not going to get any...

JIM LEHRER: OK.

Do agree with that, Michael?

MICHAEL GERSON: I do.

I think the president's speech in Texas was a political speech. But being political doesn't mean that it's cynical. The president would prefer to see a comprehensive reform. He's welcome to talk about that. Symbolism is very important in ethnic politics.

Republicans, the last few years, have been providing symbols of exclusion, talking about changing the 14th Amendment, and the Arizona law, the crackdown there. Obama wants to provide some symbols of inclusion, for political reasons. There's nothing wrong with that. It's not, eventually, enough. If the economy doesn't improve, Hispanics will feel that as well and react in that way.

But the president is well within his rights to make that case.

JIM LEHRER: Well, as Mark pointed out, President Bush, for whom you have worked, he was in favor of immigration reform that had both parts, right, that it took care of -- or it dealt with the issue of illegal immigrants who are already in the country and also about sealing the border better, right?

MICHAEL GERSON: And he made some of those arguments that Secretary Napolitano was making on this program...

JIM LEHRER: Yes.

MICHAEL GERSON: ... which is, if you want to get control of the border, you have to have some regular way to have guest workers come into the United States, and be registered, instead of, you know, crossing the border illegally. That's an important complement to controlling the problem at the border itself.

These are -- you know, it is a bipartisan issue. It has been in the past. But it has almost no chance in the current Congress.

JIM LEHRER: What -- in shorthand, what happened? Why -- where did the -- why did the consensus go away?

MICHAEL GERSON: Well, it's -- I think it's a tough question.

Some of it is, the Republican Party is not the Republican Party of George W. Bush. It doesn't have a leader that makes this case. It also -- you know, Bush failed within his own party. There was a revolt against it.

JIM LEHRER: He couldn't get it done. Yes.

MICHAEL GERSON: He couldn't get it done. And it was a talk radio issue all across the country within the conservative community. And they turned against the legislation strongly.

So, I think that that has burned a lot of Republicans. They know it is a tough thing among their own constituents. And, so...

MARK SHIELDS: Practically speaking, Jim, in an increasingly less white country, as -- which the United States is, the Republican Party has become an increasingly more white party. And that's a real political problem, just the arithmetic that works against them. [my emphasis]

When Shields says that comprehensive immigration reform is "not on anybody's agenda," he means that it's not on the agenda of anyone who counts - in the eyes of Beltway pundits.

Tags: comprehensive immigration reform, mark shields