Imagine a good guy leading this country!
I have donated to John McCain's campaign and I will continue to do so. I believe that he is the only person of either Party ( Mike, Bull Moose ,Bloomberg and ,soon, Ralph Nader - the ubiquitous Presidential cold sore that no dose of L Lysine can arrest - included ) with the character and common sense to lead America.
The War on Terror is a now a smoking cauldron of misplaced talent and shifting loyalties under President Bush. He got in a fight he can't finish and had the wrong guys holding his coat. John McCain knows how and why to fight; but, it is on immigration reform that John McCain explains what it takes to lead and in the language of the heart of one of our neighbors.
Unlike the shrill parrots of Fox News anchors or bow-tied Preppy Anchors, this public servant takes a cold look at our problems with a warm heart. He speaks staright and offers no 'bumber sticker' rhetoric or snake-oil buzz button ideas like Newt Gingrich's recent:
'Out source it to Fed-EX! Visa and Mastercard - Priceless!' Newt back to work on the novels about Old Dixie, Son.
Here is what the 'cutting the lawn next door to you guy' thinks - the guy who went to Vietnam, Desert Storm, and now raises his kids like a Man and Citizen:
This is John McCain on Immigration reform without the Spin:
"This problem cannot be allowed to continue any longer. Finding an effective, just and practical solution is difficult, but it is our work to do, on our watch. The politics of Washington have encouraged us to leave solutions to the toughest problems for another unluckier generation of leaders. Problems are left unsolved year after year, because we fear the political consequences of seriously addressing them or value their utility as political attacks in our campaigns. Illegal immigration and our porous borders are problems that we have, to our shame, ignored for too long because it was too hard and politically risky to solve. But the problem has grown too acute and dangerous to ignore any longer. To do nothing now would be an unconscionable abrogation of our responsibilities to defend the security, prosperity and values of our country.
There is simply no practical way to do that, and most Americans understand that. We have proposed a way to encourage them to come out from the underground economy, submit to a criminal background check, pay fines, back taxes and prove they are gainfully employed in exchange for a visa that would allow them to continue working here. Getting these people to declare themselves and prove they have come here for a job, pose no security threat and have no criminal record beyond entering the country illegally will enable our security and law enforcement officials to concentrate their resources on those who have come here to threaten our way of life rather than embrace it. DHS Secretary Chertoff, who helped negotiate this legislation, has warned that two million people in this country illegally have committed serious crimes. If some of them attempt to legalize their status, we will apprehend them. If they don't, we can concentrate our efforts on locating them and not rounding up lettuce pickers, hotel maids, and babysitters. Most importantly, we can devote all the resources necessary to finding terrorists who have broken our immigration laws, like three of the terrorists who intended to attack our soldiers at Ft. Dix. "
Senator McCain does not go in for the 'those are not people; they are a horde' logic of the mean spirited loser at the end of the bar and the last of his dollars ordering his 15th Bud Light of the afternoon. John McCain is a person who lost his home for quite a while and had only memories of what is best about his native land - McCain was a Prisoner of War and tortured repeatedly, abused, and demonized by people who did not want him in their country.
"I missed all of it, very much, but I still carried her ideals in the habits of my heart. And because they were all I possessed of my country, I cherished them all the more. I cherished the honor of being a citizen of a country that was the last, best hope of mankind, the great refuge of those who sought escape from despair and tyranny on crowded, miserable steamers into New York harbor, on small rafts across the Florida Straits, and on foot across the punishing deserts of the southwest. I know why people want to come here. I once thought I would rather die than be denied my country for one more day. "
McCain lays down rules for those who want in - welcome to our home and behave accordingly.
Later, I will relate some of John McCain's 'effective, just and practical' means of making immigration reform a task Americans can complete. McCain'll do the heavy lifting- the leading. I'll bet that he might even get that poor mope at the end of bar in the neighborhood tavern to Man-Up for this work!
