The key to not having any more illegals is to make it difficult for them to find employment. If you treat the current ones as highly important, there is not way to do this. As I said many times before, imagine for a moment that there is a wide consensus to get rid of the illegals already here. Imagine for the sake of argument that we stop all deportations other than for serious crimes, but anyone convicted of employing an illegal in any capacity gets (again, for the sake of argument) a mandatory 10 year jail sentence and imagine that there is an easy to use and unambiguous government service (or at least a government service that’s good enough that when you use it properly you can’t go to jail) that tells you something worthwhile about the holder of a particular SSN seeking employment. How long do you think it will be before 90%+ of the illegals self-deport and the new ones stop arriving?

I despise Bush for his position on immigration. In fact I don’t like Bush at all other than for his steadfastness on Iraq. Juan Hernandez that I write about with respect to McCain first made contact with Bush years ago. McCain to me is pretty much the same as Bush, but a better military strategist. His temper and estimated lifespan are worrisome. He seems more random, and Bush more deliberate. McCain seems more predisposed than Bush to champion typical liberal causes, like Global Warming. Bush is hesitant, but McCain is gung ho, so he is somewhat worse. They are equally pre-disposed to twist the truth. The Republicans can’t freely express their vitriol towards Bush because of how the Democrats have demonized him on Iraq. If they express any significant (meaning with consequences) vitriol, Bush will lose in Iraq. It’s a terrible situation, but the thought of 4 or 8 years of this is too much. It was so hard to defeat the Amnesty with the current Congress. What are the chances that it will not pass once in the next 8 years? And then it’s over, they got the Z visas, and you can’t put the genie back into the bottle. Game over.

Reagan made a mistake. He knew he made a mistake. I listened to Ed Meese last night. He said Reagan made a mistake, but we have to learn from our mistakes. I didn’t like Reagan THAT much, but he had a magical ability to project gravitas and he could communicate so well. He was just so much better for the country than either of the two clowns.

You and I argue about this all the time. I respect your point of view even if I rant uncontrolably otherwise at times. The point to Medved’s quote is that Bush gets a pass on his position on immigration - no vitriol there. Reagan passed straight amnesty - no hatred there. But McCain in unforgiven. I just don’t get it.

I wish you many happy hours of listening to медведь in sunny Флорида.

He is Conservative, regarless of how many times you say he isn’t. The fact is that he just is not conservative enough for you. Was Reagan a liberal when he passed a real Amnesty act? The first step to feeling better is for all of you simply to admit that, as Medved has now.

You are right about his name meaning bear however - очень хорошо

Whether it is sliming political opponents with innuendo about their fathering inter-racial children (The Bush Campaign against John McCain), or runaway government spending (the Republican Congress and President from 2002 to 2006), Conservatives always give speeches about “Conservative ideals”, but in truth they NEVER live up to them. And when their fellow Conservative can no longer hid from consequences of True Conservatism IN ACTION, the re-christen their (former) heros as “Liberals”.

Reality is that Geroge W.Bush is exactly the kind of President that Conservatives wanted: spending government money to stay in office, appointing and keeping incompetent hacks in office in order to reward loyalty.

That is real Conservatism.

I don’t know if he’s really left, but when he calls CNN moderate you have to wonder if that’s part of it. Or more likely he’s an apologist tool for the Republican leadership and their misguided policy of chasing the left to maximize their vote.

People who have watched McCain closely over the years recognize this as the man’s habitual method of attacking fellow Republicans.

He routinely accuses conservative adversaries of arguing in bad faith. …

What would you do if the Democrats wanted to hand you a $100 billion anti-illegal immigration package (that every critic says will get rid of 80% of the illegal immigrants in this country) in exchange you would have to publicly support a $20 billion increase in the National Endowment For the Arts? What would Rush do? I would think Rush the politican would seize on such a deal. On the other hand, Rush the radio host would not only complain that the president is publically supporting the “evil” National Endowment For the Arts, but the expensive plan also would still keep 20% of the illegal aliens in this country.

McCain has been in office several years and has done a lot of compromising because he is one senator among many. I would suspect he is using those compromises to his advantage. After all that is how politicans generally get elected. Abraham Lincoln promised never to veto anything Congress asked for as long as he got the support to defeat the South in the Civil War. That compromise probably got him reelected even though the actions caused the death of around 600,000 Americans on U.S. soil (and temporarily stripped the U.S. of several liberties). Lincoln ended up labled one of the best presidents even though he let congress make the laws and the military do the fighting.

Out of 26 issues, he sides with the conservatives 22 times. This is based on a chart of 28 issues (one issue was stem cell research which is now mute because of recent discoveries and the other one is pro jobs which I wouldn’t even lable as an issue) that you could have got from a link on this site. Hillary supports 10 conservative issues from the same chart.

And while it is preferable to have McCain over any Democrat in the White House, it will only be the beginning of a very difficult period. Take the frustration we have felt with the Bush White House on issues like immigration and multiply it times ten.

When our leaders on Capitol Hill try and carve out a contrasting position with Dems, they will find it even more difficult as McCain will likely side with the Dems.

This primary season has generated the worst possible set of circumstances I have seen in my voting lifetime. It stinks and I am not going to pretend I am happy about it.