I was honestly prepared to be crestfallen that Barack Obama said something stupid. (Like a week or two ago when he railed against NAFTA, or like the rumor of an Obama-Edwards ticket were that rumor to become truth.) But if you're going to accuse someone of "Hispandering," shouldn't that accusation at least have some substance?
Here are the three parts of Obama's answer last night to which Kaus gives annotated objections:
"to suggest somehow that the problem that we're seeing in inner-city unemployment, for example, is attributable to immigrants, I think, is a case of scapegoating that I do not believe in, I do not subscribe to."
Take any given unemployed American -- more consistent with Obama's statement take any given unemployed inner-city American. What are the five biggest reasons why that particular American is unemployed? Lack of skills, under-education, lack of previous job experience (the "you need experience to get experience" catch-22)? Does immigration even crack the top five?
Kaus gives a link (to National Review! - no better source of unbiased empirical data was available?) indicating that immigrants push down unskilled wages. No joke! That's economics 101. And on the margin I'm sure immigration does have some effect on unemployment -- but rather less than you'd think from the hype.
"We can't have hundreds of thousands of people coming over to the United States without us having any idea who they are"
(The bold tags are in Kaus's annotation.) Benefit of doubt would be that the "without us having an idea" highlights an additional problem rather than stating the only problem. But why give benefit of doubt when you have an ax to grind and a blog to push?
"hiring folks who cannot complain about worker conditions, who aren't getting the minimum wage sometimes, or aren't getting overtime. We have to crack down on them."
Kaus complains that Obama refuses to be explicit that "hiring illegals" qua hiring illegals is part of the moral wrong here. That's a breathtaking lack of perspective. Imagine meeting a businessman in hell and asking him why he was eternally damned. Do you think it was because of slave labor conditions -- or because he hired people who didn't have their papers?
Posted by Matt Bruce at February 1, 2008 11:52 AMI think, as you read further into his post, the most damning thing he cites is, err, a certain junior Senator from Illinois speaking to a decidedly different crowd in 2006.
The charge of Hispandering -- do you think Mickey makes this case at all? If Senator Obama were pushing the idea of, say, unlimited immigration from, say, Latin America, would he have phrased things any differently? Is Senator Obama making the case that he is strongly in favor of enforcing existing labor laws that pertain to those here illegally?
I don't think the facts of the immigration situation in this country have changed a great deal since Senator Obama won Iowa. But his talk sure has.
Hiring people here illegally and treating them fairly may in fact get some guy into heaven, not hell. The point is, it should also send him into the slammer. We can go round and round all night on the morality of illegal immigration and how it pertains to this country and our future (and the future of the countries whose citizens feel sticking around illegally in the US is their best hope). But there isn't a whole lot of debate about the legality of the hirings.
Is Senator Obama saying we should change the laws and remove the penalty for hiring those here illegally so long as you treat them fairly once they're hired? If so, I think a significant majority of the country's voters would like to hear that. Or was he just pandering?
Also, come visit my frickin' blog already.
Posted by: ZD at February 2, 2008 09:45 PM