Seeking the Facile Mind of the Hewitts and the Malkins

Almost everyone outside Washington D.C. agrees that the Immigration Reform bill cooked up this week by a coalition of Republicans, Democrats, Idiots, Poseurs, Bureaucrats, Gullible, and their assorted staffs, is at best a poorly-designed and incomplete work. For example, in my opinion the bill has some good points and some weak ones, but is useless because it has absolutely no enforcement provisions, as if the federal government will enlist the help of the Keebler Elves to make it work.

But that belief in fairy-tale mechanics is not limited to the proponents of this bill, either. For a long time now, it has been quite the fashion for some people to savagely attack the President and the Congress for whatever they suggest, while presenting no substantive proposal as an alternative. What always happens is that they toss out a goal, like securing the borders, and call it the action, which would be how to make that happen. This is dishonest on its face, especially when it is practiced and repeated by the very people who complain about weak spots in the plans pur forth by the serious people.

This is particularly poor conduct by the media, and there I include the web media and bloggers, especially Hugh Hewitt and Michelle Malkin. There was a time I respected Malkin's well-considered opinion, but she has dived into the sea of 'hate the foreigners' so often and with such clear malice that I cannot consider her work balanced. As for Mr. Hewitt, I generally respect him but have been forced to conclude that on this issue he is not reasonable, and seems unaware that he is using the same rhetorical tactics he has - quite properly - rebuked in others before. So I have a challenge for the Hewitts and the Malkins of the Blogosphere.

The President and the Congress have not been able to come up with an effective, functional plan for securing the borders and addressing Immigration Reform proactively. What specific, detailed plan do you have or know of, which will accomplish the following essential goals:

[] Secure the national borders from constant and pervasive penetration by illegals, and potentially terrorists?

[] Enforce the laws already on the books, which address illegal possession of documents, especially forged and stolen documents, which address employment of illegals by American companies, and which address the disposition of persons found to have entered the United States illegally?

[] Address the presence of more than twelve million foreign nationals already residing in the United States, in a manner which is compliant with the U.S. Constitution, viable given available resources, and realistic regarding the response by those persons to the initiative?


The President has already made specific proposals on these points, and so any claim which effectively tries to take the same suggestion without crediting the President for the idea will be disallowed. Vague homilies such as 'make all illegals leave', or 'we should force businesses to obey the law' will be ridiculed. And in keeping with your own past behavior, ignoring this challenge will allow me to claim that you do not intend to seriously address the issue.


My point is not to harangue or heckle Mr. Hewitt or Ms. Malkin. In the actual case, I frankly do not expect either of them to respond, because neither of them seems interested in solving problems, but only in making a noise about the issue, which is common for media. What I do hope to accomplish, is to remind the reader that complex issues are difficult to sort out in the best of times, and even politicians can be credited with trying to find a good solution with little support or cooperation from the very people who claim they care the most.