Observations Regarding Illegal Immigration

I missed George Bush's speech, because I knew that there are too many hypocrisies regarding illegal immigration in American life to make it possible for him to say anything straightforward. I just wanted to point out that hi-tech solutions to border crossing enforcement issues can help, but it's not a cure-all, because of numerous, expensive technical bugs. For example, one of the unmanned, 14-million-dollar Predator aircraft sent to Arizona last year to help with border enforcement there crashed recently, and no one apparently knows why.

I'm also mystified why conservative opinion jelled so early on the desirability of pushing this issue at this time. By the end of 2003, Mark Williams at Sacramento's conservative talk radio station, KFBK- AM 1530, was already flogging illegal immigration as the natural successor of the California gubernatorial recall as the next big conservative populist issue, not just for Californians, but nationwide. But why? Why now? After California Republicans were marginalized in the late 90's by the issue, it would have seemed wise to avoid the issue evermore, like the plague. Nevertheless, the coordination was too good for this conservative campaign to have been an accident (lifestyle liberals, meanwhile, were pushing gay marriage, which was also equally puzzling, and also equally not an accident).

Judging from conservative reaction to the President's speech, right now, it's mostly conservatives who are getting sliced up by the issue. Not every hot-button issue works out for the benefit of political instigators. Play with fire, and sometimes you get burnt!