RoguePlanet

The straw that broke the camel's back for the GOP base

Brown people speaking Meskin.

Here in South Carolina the far-right Republican base was already ticked at Lindsey Graham for helping engineer the "Gang of 14" compromise on Bush's judicial nominations, among other things, but his support of the now-dead immigration bill has driven them into a blind, frothing rage. Just check out the comments at Brad Warthen's blog here.

I think these remarks by President Bush, posted June 3, 2007 on the official White House website, pretty much sum it up:

President Bush Rigorously Defends Immigration Bill to His Rapidly Imploding Base of Xenophobic Crackers


Folks, we've been together through a lot. And you've stood by me through it all. Through the illegitimate election of 2000. Through the double-dip recession. Through the terror attacks of 9/11TM. Through Enron. Through the botched war in Afghanistan and failed hunt for Osama bin Laden. Through the clusterfuck kickoff to the Iraq war in 2003. Through the Patriot Act and illegal wiretapping of innocent Americans. Through "Mission Accomplished." Through Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and a policy of torture. Through Katrina. Through failed Social Security reform. Through Armstrong Williams & Jeff Gannon. Through Terri Schaivo. Through Tom Delay. Through Mark Foley. Through Scooter Libby. Through $3.00 gas. Through Walter Reed. Through "the Surge". Through Alberto Gonzales. And now even through 3500 US troops killed in Vietraq.

And after all that, the thing it takes to get you folks pissed at me is letting a few million Mexi-Ricans pour over our borders and steal your jobs so you can't afford to put Ramen on the table? Well, I think I understand your problem. On one hand, you correctly accept that I'm practically Jesus. But on the other hand, you can't help but feel a surge of simple-minded, paranoid racist hatred every time you hear one of those dirty Spics yammering away in that nonsense gibberish of theirs

Sure enough:

GAINESVILLE, GA -- Stephanie Usrey strode up to her local Wal-Mart store the other morning with the steely look of a boxer about to step into the ring.

A stay-at-home mother of two, Usrey has dreaded shopping at this particular branch ever since a Friday afternoon about five years ago, when she said she suddenly noticed she was the only non-Latino customer.

“That was the first time I looked around and said, ‘Man, I didn’t realize how many Mexicans there were here,’ ” Usrey, 39, recalled. “And they don’t seem to feel any discomfort when they’re, like, six inches from your face and talking to each other in their language, either. I just felt very encroached upon. . . . It was like an instant feeling of ‘I’m in the minority, and if we don’t get control over this, pretty soon all of America will be outnumbered.’”

Yep. Lindsey Graham may well be facing defeat in the next election due to his failure to apprehend the desire of Americans in elastic-waist stretch pants not to hear any funny languages.

I myself was in the local Wal-Mart Superstore recently (I know, I know. Sorry). When I got to the checkout line, I looked around and realized that every other person in every checkout line, not just mine, was hispanic. And yes, they were speaking in Spanish. I didn't have time to become irate at all those people speaking not-American around me, because I was too busy enjoying the realization that I was the tallest person in the whole front of the store. At five feet three inches tall, I don't get to experience that sensation very often. So I'm all for more immigration, for people of smaller stature than me.

However, there is a progressive, non-xenophobic case to be made against the immigration bill, and here it is.

(WaPo article via Sadly, No! )