Posted by Dan Rodricks at 6:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

Starting Monday, the Oz Bengur-for-Congress commercial that has been appearing on this web site (and with this blog) will air on television stations in the Baltimore market, and viewers will hear as clear an anti-Iraq War message as can be found in the 2006 primary campaign. His son doesn't appear in the commercial -- as Martin O'Malley's little boy does -- but Oz Bengur, Democratic candidate for Maryland's Third District congressional seat, draws from his son's military service a point too seldom delivered: The disconnect between Congress and the on-the-ground military that does all the marching, fighting and dying in the age of all-volunteer armed forces.

Fewer than 10 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate have family members who have served, or are eligible to serve, in Iraq. Bengur's son, Noah, a Marine captain and Harrier pilot, returned from Iraq after a tour in March. He's stationed at the Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point, N.C., and his father believes his son could return to combat duty within the year. Captain Bengur, a graduate of Gilman School and the Maine Maritime Academy, keeps his opinions about the war to himself, and there are no plans to include him in the campaign, other than by reference.

In the meantime, Bengur is running with a clear end-the-war message, saying George Bush's plan for the war and its aftermath has been a costly failure. Bengur's web site keeps a running tally of casualties and costs. He believes it's the No. 1 issue on the minds of voters in 2006.

"Ending the war in Iraq is the most important issue we face," Bengur says. "It is not just a matter of national security, it is a matter of economic security for Maryland families and our nation."

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 8:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

The reclamation of the North Branch of the Potomac River, through Garrett County to Allegheny, is one of the great comeback stories in Maryland -- a superb natural resource, once left for dead because of mine acid and other pollution, restored and thriving with fish again. I have had some great trout and small-mouth days out there, including along the long, beautiful lower stretch below Luke, a part that I hope many Marylanders will one day be able to see for themselves by foot or paddle. (This photo is from autumn 2004, and that's Os' trainer Richie Bancells in the role of gillie on this brown-trout catch.) The state needs to acquire more access so that more citizens can get in and get a look at this stretch of "the nation's river" and take an interest in it.

One of the men who labored long for the North Branch, former DNR official Ken Pavol, is still fishing there and hiring out for guided trips. He says the trout fishing has been slower this season, but they've been catching bass and big tiger muskie. Ken sent this photo yesterday, from the lower stretch of the restored North Branch, as proof. Go to www.easterntrophies.com and click on the North Branch link for a description of this catch.

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 7:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Michael Steele, the Republican Maryland senatorial candidate who dined on steak and risotto while bashing the GOP and President Bush during a Monday luncheon with reporters, gave his opponents even more material to work with the next day, telling ABC News that it's OK for members of Congress to give themselves another pay raise while keeping the U.S. minimum wage at $5.15.

One has nothing to do with the other, he said.

Even symbolically, I guess.

Leading Democrats have proposed that Congress forego another pay increase until the minimum wage is lifted to $7.25 an hour. (That's still only about $15,000 a year for a 40-hour work week, and below the government-established poverty line for the sole wage-earner of a family of four. The minimum wage went from $4.75 to $5.15 an hour in 1997. Congressional pay has gone up every year for almost a decade, and the salary of a Representative or Senator is now more than $160,000 a year, plus benefits.)

Here's a quote that's sure to get Steele the votes he needs among the average, working-class citizens the GOP is trying to woo: "Trust me, whether or not a congressman gets a pay raise has nothing to do with the brother who's living on the street corner."

Good stuff. A real populist flare there, Michael.

Who's writing this guy's material?

Perhaps no one.

Perhaps that's the problem.

I think what we have here is a first-degree identity crisis. More later.

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 1:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

"It's a lot easier to change a law than to change a human heart," President Bush told the NAACP last week. "I understand that many African-Americans distrust my political party."

Ya think?

With the President's promise to sign it, Congress recently voted to extend the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965 another 25 years, affirming its protections of minorities and adding some provisions. This time, the vote was unanimous in the Senate, 98-0, with two members absent, and in the House the vote was 390-33. Among the relatively small group of Republican white guys voting against the measure -- Maryland's 6th District Republican Roscoe Bartlett.

The 6th District covers western Maryland, plus Frederick County, Carroll and parts of Harford. You would think even conservative voters would see the value in the renewal of an act that was the centerpiece of the civil rights movement and opened the polling precincts up to minorities who had been intimidated -- with poll taxes and literacy tests -- from voting for generations.

But ole Roscoe apparently thinks we've fixed racism pretty much now and that there's no reason -- even as his president and his party try to convince black voters to consider Republican candidates -- to affirm and renew this important law. Here's the statement I got from his spokesperson, Lisa Wright:

"Congressman Bartlett decides how to vote on bills -- not based upon the names of bills -- but their content. He said the systemic and structural racism by some local and state governments that required the prescriptive medicine of the federal Voting Rights Act in 1964 and 1982 no longer exist.  From his experience as a medical school professor, he noted that you don't keep taking the same medicine or continue the same treatment when the underlying conditions have changed.    The medicine that helped formerly can do harm prospectively.  He studied the reauthorization provisions carefully and concluded they didn't reflect current realities to protect the right of all American citizens in every jurisdiction to have the opportunity to vote."

Harm? Extending the Voting Rights Act would harm someone? It might have inconvenienced certain states with a long history of discrimination, but the greatest value was in the symbolic power of its affirmation -- particularly for the GOP. With those 33 votes against -- all Republicans -- they didn't exactly restore their image as the party of Lincoln. Way to go, Roscoe!

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 7:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Oh, man, that was so close! Saturday night at Artscape, on the United Way stage in front of MICA, G. Love and Special Sauce performed their bluesy hip hop for a damp crowd that had endured a heavy rain shower just before the performance. G. Love threw his topper, a shiny black fedora-lookin' thang -- we think it was a Totes product -- into the crowd, and Sonny Boy came within inches of grabbing it. A very tall guy with a very long reach beat him to it. Sonny Boy was bummed, but still thrilled to be there. (I know the feeling, came that close to an Eddie Murray home run ball myself.)

What a great scene -- with so many young people discovering it and enjoying it. What a treasure Artscape is. Every time I hear some grouch go on about the city -- some sour talk-radio conversation about how awful Baltimore is -- I think the fools don't know what they're missing. (And when they live in the suburbs and never bother to visit the city, no wonder.)

So many perceptions of the city are narrow and out of date, informed almost exclusively by bleeds-it-leads local television news. (Seven out of 10 Americans use TV as their prime source of information about their community, so go figure.)

Sure, the city has big and daunting and festering problems. We know. We hear about them all the time. But that's not all there is. On Rodricks For Breakfast, 1994-1999, WMAR-TV, we used to get calls every Sunday from people who had never heard of some of the places we highlighted -- the Pratt Library, for instance, or the Cross Street Market -- and were suddenly eager to get there. (Since RFB's cancellation, no Baltimore affiliate has offered local programming like it, skipping arts, culture, the local scene and, for the most part, human interest stories, so go figure.)

Artscape proves, year after year, that there's more to Baltimore than what appears on the 11 o'clock news. If more and more young people discover the city the city will be saved. It's going to happen. It has to happen.

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 9:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                    

At an antiques show, reader/listener Alice Lochte purchased a Baltimore Sun from Friday, Aug. 3, 1923. The most prominent front-page headline: President Harding Is Dead. (Warren G., Republican of Ohio, philanderer, servant of political bosses, notoriously bad speechmaker and cabinet-maker -- see scandal, Teapot Dome -- died in San Francisco of either food poisoning or a heart attack, depending on which account of his death you read.)

Here are some other items of note from the 83-year-old newspaper:
Letter to the editor
"A new nuisance has put in its appearance in the nation's capitol in the shape of pushcart vendors, and they are mostly foreigners who cannot speak or understand a word of English. ..."
Enforcement Begun On Garbage Mixing
"They were charged with mixing garbage with paper, bottle, tin cans, and other refuse. . ."
Goucher Girl Sues For $10,000 Damages
"Alleges Wealthy Washingtonian Made Improper Advances To Her"
Autoist Shoots Man On Street And Speeds Off
"Owner of Machine Arrested Later; Four Others Taken By Police Deny Being In Car"

"So," notes Alice, "in 1923, they had problems with immigrants speaking English, recycling violations, sexual harassment, drive-by shootings.  . . There is no new news."

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 7:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Should Baltimore children in failing schools get a chance to attend a successful suburban school instead? Under a provision of the Bush Administration's No Child Left Behind law, they could -- if we had something called "regional cooperation" around here. Short of that, there is no way to force the issue.

But it may be coming.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, parents from across New Jersey have filed suit against the state board of education and several poor-performing school districts for the right to let their children transfer to other schools, public or private.

What we have here is a national test case of No Child Left Behind. It was filed on behalf of 60,000 students in 96 failing schools in 25 districts. If the suit is successful, students in such schools could switch to the public or even private school of their choice, regardless of geography - and their home district would have to pay for it, the Inquirer said.

"If decided in their favor," The Record newspaper in Bergen reported, "the suit could allow the state's poorest children to attend class in wealthy towns, trading dilapidated facilities and a culture of failure for cutting-edge resources and peers primed for learning."

Under No Child Left Behind, schools that fail to meet state standards for two years must offer students the option to transfer to another public school within the district or -- and this is key -- even to another district. "But," the Inquirer reported, "school-choice advocates say this is really no choice at all because there is often no room at the other schools and neighboring districts are not required to take them in."

I looked into this issue a couple of years ago and discovered that, for instance, the city could ask Baltimore County to take some transfers, but local and state educators said it was a non-starter. Politically, it did not seem feasible and the suburban schools supposedly could not handle the new kids; there was no room for them. Mostly, it was -- and is -- politics.

The intent of the suit is to provide choice. Right now, in certain school districts, children are shuffled from one failing school to another. Do you think Governor Ehrlich and Nancy Grasmick would go for this? Would Martin O'Malley? Imagine George Bush supporting de facto busing. As they say on the editorial page: This bears further watching.

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 6:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

It's indeed too bad that Hairspray, the film musical version of the stage musical version of the John Waters film, won't be filmed in Baltimore but in Toronto. Producer Craig Zadan said we simply don't have the vast soundstages here that are needed to mount such an elaborate song-and-dance production.

Jumping right on this is Mike Mitchell, director of Chesapeake Habitat For Humanity and a candidate for state delegate from south-and-southeast Baltimore's 46th District. (The district covers Dundalk, Greektown, Highlandtown, Patterson Park, Canton, Fells Point, the Inner Harbor, Federal Hill, Cherry Hill, Westport, Brooklyn, Curtis Bay, and Locust Point.) Mitchell suggests renovating the old, vacant Crown Cork & Seal building, between Highlandtown and Greektown, for a massive soundstage.

"The Crown Cork & Seal building is ideal for movie production and its renovation would renew both its surrounding neighborhood and the city," Mitchell declared.

Mitchell says the long-vacant Crown Cork building demonstrates the need for more innovation in redevelopment around the city:

"Tens of thousands of vacant homes and buildings, owned by non-Baltimoreans holding on to property as though it's a stock or bond, preventing home ownership and decent housing for those who live here and, in the case of this building, preventing what has the potential to be a film-making center on the East Coast. With the right state and city resources, that building could be a soundstage attracting movies, and the talent that comes with them, making Hightlandtown truly an arts and entertainment district."

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 9:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
                    

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 1:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

William Donald Schaefer and . . .  Weapon of Destructive Self

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Last week, I requested by e-mail the mayor's views on a few issues. Answers to the questions I asked will appear in a future column on O'Malley and his opponent in the 2006 gubernatorial election, Gov. Robert Ehrlich. The mayor's responses came with the cover letter below. The column to which he refers appeared last Thursday.

I think yesterday’s column hit on a big part of what this Governor’s race is about: Whose side is government on, and what is it doing to make people’s lives better? Anthony Brown and I believe government is one of the ways – along with families, churches, community groups and businesses – that we can organize ourselves to solve problems.  We’ve tried to act on this belief in ways large and small – including the efforts to encourage carpooling you described yesterday, along with reducing parking fees for hybrids.  Republicans, including Bob Ehrlich, make very clear that they believe government, itself, is the problem.  This is not an insignificant difference.   

In the mayor’s office, we’ve worked to make government more effective and accountable – tackling issues that many people thought were intractable, like childhood lead paint poisoning and drug addiction – because we think government can and should work, and in fact we owe it to taxpayers to make it work.   

For example, we were able to double funding for drug treatment, partnering with the state (although according to the nonprofit Baltimore Substance Abuse Systems, state funding has been cut by $7 million in the past 3 ½ years), by proving its effectiveness through DrugStat.   

We tackled lead paint poisoning in a similar manner, identifying neighborhoods where it was occurring and then holding government accountable for affirmatively preventing it, rather than reacting after the fact.  And we’ve reduced the number of children testing positive for serious lead poisoning by about 65% – even as we test twice as many kids.  Efforts like Operation Safe Kids, Project 5000, Baltimore Main Streets, Healthy Neighborhoods and CitiStat are all acting on the belief that effective government can and should weigh in on the side of citizens to help solve problems.  And, together, the people of Baltimore are reclaiming neighborhoods, like Patterson Park and Reservoir Hill and Poppleton, that some predicted were lost for good.

In just the past few days, we have proposed that our state government join with Illinois and other states to reimport cheaper prescription drugs, helping seniors and others struggling with high costs – despite objections from President Bush, Governor Ehrlich and the drug companies.  And we’ve proposed to have our state government take action to bring small businesses together, giving them leverage in dealing with insurance companies – reducing costs and insuring more people.   

Contrast that with appointing “pro-business” regulators, who do not regulate – harming not just residents, but also small businesses.  We went to court to say that government has a responsibility to do better than our Public Service Commission did  – to at least determine what rate increase is justified, and not just accept what the utility claims – and a judge agreed.  Or denying people a dollar increase in the minimum wage…  Or protecting giant corporations from paying their fair share of healthcare costs…  Or cutting higher education and increasing tuition – mortgaging our future – as the first option to balance a budget… Or selling public forests and parks – or the water beneath them – and cutting open space funds by hundreds of millions of dollars. 

Your question on Smart Growth hits on these same issues: What is government doing to solve problems and help make people’s lives better – thinking beyond the next election?  If you believe government is the problem, you aren’t going to go to work every day, trying to make it more effective – trying to use it as a tool to organize neighbors and solve problems.  A lot depends on who is doing the governing.

Again, these are not insignificant differences.  They go to the heart of what kind of state we want Maryland to be in the coming years.  Government can’t solve every problem.  We’ll need to keep working every day for many years to address the great needs that exist in our city and state.   

But we need to start with the big idea that we can solve these problems together… that “government of the people, by the people, for the people” can and will make a difference.  And that’s a big part of what our campaign for Maryland is about.

Sincerely,

Martin O’Malley

Posted by Chris Handzlik at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
                    

While the General Assembly engaged in its recent vivisection of the Public Service Commission, I did some research into the PSC’s origins and, in the process, tripped into a fascinating corner of Maryland history and the record of a long-gone governor from Conowingo named Austin Crothers. He was a man of contradictions in an age of ambiguity, a progressive with regressive tendencies, a bold reformer mired in the muck of his time. Nowadays we’d probably call him a head case. I don’t fire up the Wayback Machine often in this column, so indulge me. I’ve discovered that, once upon a time,Maryland had a real progressive movement, and the governor most identified with that period was this mustachioed Crothers, born in 1860 to a Cecil County farmer and his wife.

Crothers came to prominence during the Progressive era, early in the 20th Century, and though his accomplishments are many and impressive – some could even be an inspiration to Marylanders in this election year – there was an ugly side. Progressivism was not colorblind. ... Clearly Crothers’ era was closer to the Civil War than to the modern civil rights movement. But it is still remarkable to read how forward-thinking men could remain addicted to the disenfranchisement of African-Americans, even as their constituents seemed to smarten up.For the record, Maryland history indicates that Crothers, governor from 1908 until 1912, and many of his fellow Democrats were reform-minded in the progressive spirit of their times. “Challenging boss rule, expressing confidence in science and calling for efficiency, Progressivism registered a change in ideas about government’s role in American society,” writes historian Robert Bruggers.

And yet, though disciples of this ambitious movement in American politics, Crothers and other Democrats made several notable attempts to restrict the voting rights of African-Americans. . . According to Bruggers’ rich and useful “Maryland: A Middle Temperament, 1634-1980,” the progressive period in Maryland was an age of contradiction, noting with irony how, in 1911, the year Baltimore mandated the pasteurization of milk, the city also legalized racial segregation in housing. . . Crothers was among the schemers in disenfranchisement.

He stated that some qualifying test for voting would make black men “frugal and industrious and eager for an education.” In 1908, his attorney general, Isaac Straus, fashioned an amendment to the state constitution that would have required applicants to write out the full names of certain public officials before being granted voting rights. (Maryland voters rejected Straus’ plan, as they had an earlier disenfranchising measure known as the Poe ammendment.)

Then the infamous Digges amendment emerged, also during the Crothers administration. That amendment, in 1910, would have given all white men in the state the right to vote and required all others to have owned at least $500 worth of property for at least two years before registering to vote. The General Assembly passed a measure allowing only whites to vote on the amendment. Crothers vetoed the whites-only measure andMaryland voters resoundingly rejected the Digges amendment.

There you have the reasons the word “unfortunately” appears in at least one biographical sketch of Austin Crothers. “It testified to the ambiguity of progress in Maryland,” writes Brugger, “that the Crothers administration both emitted the Digges amendment and left behind a series of important reform acts."

Crothers had many achievements that marked his administration as progressive. He and the General Assembly formed a state roads commission in 1908, the first in the nation, and gave it the authority to buy out the private toll roads and improve road transportation in the state. Crothers tried to root out waste in Annapolis and corruption in political campaigns. He called for an end to cronyism and the “evil practice” of electoral bribery. Straus, his attorney general and the man who had come up with the education test for voting rights, also authored a campaign-finance bill that required the publication of donors and expenses, limited spending on campaigns and – get this – prohibited corporation contributions. (The General Assembly approved the bill.) During Crothers’ tenure, the state strengthened election laws and established the regulation of banking and insurance. The General Assembly created the Public Service Commission to regulate public service providers and utilities. It called for PSC members to be "broadly representative of the public interest” (and not, presumably, cozy with the industries they regulated). Crothers also called for a centralized state purchasing agency. He supported higher food safety standards and gave public health officials enforcement powers. He called for better care for the mentally ill and for workmen's compensation.

“We want to put Maryland in the front rank of the march of progress,” Crothers was quoted as saying. “Standpattism in both parties is dead, and we hope never to be resurrected.” He did as promised and served only one term, returning to Cecil County in 1912. He died in May of that year.

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 7:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

The former congressman and NAACP president confirmed that he supports national public service for all young Americans, and has been giving the idea a lot of thought. He said he would like to hear a "national conversation" on the topic.

I am, of course, interested in this subject and have called for national public service -- military, domestic and foreign -- for all Americans. I wrote two columns on the subject in May (quoted in part below), and received more e-mail on that subject (the vast majority of it supportive) than on any subject I've ever raised in the column.  . . . .  By the way, a WashPost poll earlier this month showed Mfume with a six-point lead over Ben Cardin.

National Public Service: What I advocate -- a two-year public service commitment for all Americans once they reach the age of 18, with deferment optional until the age of 21, when service becomes mandatory -- goes beyond military needs. A National Public Service Administration would stage a daily national drawing to decide what path each citizen takes -- military, domestic or foreign humanitarian. Military duty would be as it is now, but all branches would be served in some way by the draft.  A domestic assignment would take a draftee anywhere in the United States, from urban public schools to rural public works project. Foreign-service assignments would take draftees where they're needed and -- I'll add this, at the behest of one reader -- likely to feel appreciated. National Public Service would eventually create a new kind of American or, depending on your historic view, take us back to a time (the Depression, World War II) in which nearly every citizen had his or her hands on the ropes of the great ship. For a few years in the lives of each man or woman, the common good becomes their focus -- serving the nation's defense, improving society from within, spreading good will around the world -- and they would take lessons learned from this experience into the rest of their lives. Public service gives us an engaged, active and vigilant citizenry with an informed world view, and it broadens the definition of patriotism.

Military draft: Military commanders say they prefer the all-volunteer military. They get a more motivated, patriotic, professional grade of soldier that way and reduce the social and cultural problems associated with conscription. But no one I know, with the necessity for multiple tours we're seeing in Iraq among the enlisted and reserve military, trusts that the United States has the manpower necessary to carry out and maintain the kind of missions we undertake. No one I know is rushing off to enlist, either. Numbers are just one part of this. There are larger problems for the nation - the inequity of a system that does not demand equal sacrifice from all Americans for a war that might last years, and the diminished vigilance of a people who are not invested in the decisions or the outcomes. A draft would wake everyone up. A draft would have ended George Bush's war several thousand casualties ago. "The real `two Americas,'" wrote Weisberg in Slate in March, "are not rich versus poor or religious versus secular but military versus civilian. ... Once again, young people without good opportunities in life are handling the fighting and dying for those with better things to do - only this time, there is not even a pretense of shared responsibility for defending the country. Such injustice is hard to face up to in a country where social equality remains the civic religion."

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 5:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                    

I heard this guy speak for the first time yesterday -- Marc Steiner Show, WYPR-FM -- and he's got a smart, made-for-soundbites rap. (I tuned in just as a caller got on the line to say that, based on what he had heard so far in the show, he was NOT going to vote for Lichtman.) Lichtman is an anti-Iraq war Maryland Democrat -- aren't they all now? --  running for the Sarbanes seat, against Mfume and Cardin and others. He hasn't exactly been high profile around Baltimore, which is because he doesn't have much money and hasn't already been in office. (He's a history professor at American U.) Being an outsider -- particularly in contrast to long-time pol Cardin -- is part of Lichtman's pitch, however. He has an unconventional TV commercial -- jumping in the C&0 Canal in a business suit to "make a splash" -- that apparently aired in the DC area and on some national cable outlets in March, but I haven't seen it in this market. Lichtman said we will.  If you want to have a look, it can be found on the Lichtman for Senate web site. http://www.allanlichtman.com/

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 7:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Let me make it clear: I don't support unfettered growth of any government, state or local or federal. I'm talking about progressive ideas and smart management, regulation and intelligent planning in government. I'm talking about fostering a new attitude to get us away from the assumption that everything American government does leads to trouble. I'm not saying bigger is better. I'm just trying to challenge the assumptions many Americans have from three decades of hearing about the "failed policies of the past, etc." -- that we'd be a lot better off with less government in our lives. Do we really want less regulation by the Food and Drug Administration, fewer food-processing inspections by the US Department of Agriculture? With the population growing the way it is --  300 million by fall, 400 million by 2040 -- do we really want to allow a free-for-all in the development of land, or would we all be better off if Smart Growth had some teeth?  State-supervised auto-emissions testing is a pain in the neck, but there's no question it's necessary. No one wants to deal with poverty or issues like affordable housing. If government doesn't get into that act -- to draw attention, to make a plan, to plant some incentives -- who's going to? One other problem with the anti-government drumbeat: Do we really want to raise another generation to view public service darkly, or would we be better off if those who will end up in charge by the time we Baby Boomers are in assisted living see public service as a noble aspiration?

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 6:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

I think we should invite all immigrants who feel unwelcome in Hazleton, Pa., to move to Baltimore, reclaim abandoned rowhouses and open up small businesses or go to work for employers here. Our Irish-American Democratic mayor has been far more welcoming than Hazleton's Italian-American Republican mayor, who is playing the most cynical kind of politics -- exploiting fears and prejudices to stir up the voters and make a name for himself in the national GOP. Not even President Bush seemed to want to do that with this issue. The president put forth a fair and reasonable plan for dealing with the nation's illegal immigrants; it included securing the border with Mexico and arranging for a path to citizenship for those already here. "America can be a lawful society and a welcoming society at the same time," Bush said in his May speech from the Oval Office. "We will fix the problems created by illegal immigration, and we will deliver a system that is secure, orderly  and fair." Over the weekend, Bill Clinton praised Bush's reforms, noting that the most conservative wing of the GOP wanted to use the issue to divide rather than build an evolving American society, and to distract us from the war in Iraq and the health care crisis. (Not to mention North Korea.)

There's nothing new here, really. A politician can always count on a little bigotry -- and I don't care how you stew it, this immigration debate carries bigotry's stench -- to rile up the booboisie. It would be nice to see the president stick to his plan and not surrender to those in his own party who want to take a hard and impractical line on the illegals among us and exploit fears and prejudice for November votes. The assumption that all immigrants bring to America are problems and burdens is wrong, and that has been proven wrong again and again over time.

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)