I think I must surely be going mad. There is no other way to explain the Republican reaction to its constituency regarding the immigration amnesty bill.
It was bad enough when they accused all of us of being lazy by saying that these illegal aliens (yes, no mincing words here) are doing work we won’t do. From the President on down, they have denigrated us and McCain even went so far as to say to a group of union leaders at a speech that they wouldn’t pick lettuce for fifty dollars an hour. “You can’t do it, my friends.”
But now we have Trent Lott doing his best imitation of Hugo Chavez. Lott supports the President and the bill, but he’s gone even further out there in its defense. He’s now attacking arguably the most important reason why the Republicans enjoyed a sort of rennaisance in the last decade or so; talk radio.
Here’s what he said the other day: “Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem.” To me, that sounds eerily reminiscent of the policies of Hugo Chavez, and that at the least, the next order of business for Lott is to re-enact the Fairness Doctrine.
But it goes deeper, and here’s where I really begin to question my own faculties. He’s also beginning to sound like a tyrant, saying things like this; Senate Republican leaders may try to rein in “younger guys who are huffing and puffing against the bill.”
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not so naive that I don’t understand that this sort of thing goes on in the Halls all the time. But when it’s right there in print, and coupled with his obvious disdain for talk radio, it seems to set a pattern for some dangerous ideology.
The underlying message, however, is much broader, as evidenced in recent months. Neither party cares much what we think or desire. They are in power and they will do what they wish.
In Lott’s own words, we have to deal with that.
-Woody
