WHAT THE MARXISTS USED TO CALL �CONTRADICTIONS.� Over at the Corner, JPod is excited about this CNN poll showing that 79 percent of people who watched last night approved of the President�s speech.
Actually, that number doesn�t shock me. It tracks with lots of recent polling showing that Americans very broadly support a) tougher border enforcement and b) some kind of realistic amnesty deal for illegals already here, which is exactly what Bush called for. Heck, if they�d called me last night, and I wasn�t in a fighting mood, even I might have said I approved of the speech. The media chatter tends to be dominated by the poles -- reporters seek out the guy from the Minutemen, the woman from La Raza, etc.
What�s interesting here is that Bush, generally speaking, came out in favor of the Kennedy-McCain bill and against the tougher House version. The magazine that has been most critical of Kennedy-McCain? By an Arizona-Mexico border mile, it�s been National Review. The mag did a huge cover story blasting the legislation sometime last year, as I recall. And Editor Rich Lowry wrote a syndicated column headlined (at least in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer) �McCain-Kennedy Amnesty Bill Disastrous.� So John is a little bit in the position here that we might be in, say, if President Hillary �She Can�t Be Stopped� (just kidding!) Clinton won a 79 percent approval rating for a speech tying a minimum-wage increase to support for CAFTA.
--Michael Tomasky
