Bush Chirps

 George W. Bush has been as invisible as any retired president since Reagan - who largely disappeared from public view due to his Alzheimer's. Which is why I was surprised to see him weigh in with an editorial in the WaPo. Ostensibly, this is the equivalent of going on the Tonight Show to flog your new movie, as Bush has a book coming out. To be more charitable, as a former governor of Texas, Bush has always been something of a moderate on immigration (the topic of his op-ed).  

My first instinct was to dismiss his assertion that "So how is it that in a country more generous to new arrivals than any other, immigration policy is the source of so much rancor and ill will? The short answer is that the issue has been exploited in ways that do little credit to either party." This is the sort of lazy "bothsides" rhetoric that has largely obscured the rise of the genuinely dangerous extremism at the heart of Mr. Bush's party. George Bush was one of our worst presidents - and I would argue he is our worst two-term president - but Trump's unique awfulness has obscured this truth about his Republican predecessor. I'm not inclined to go along with Bush's "bothsides" argument on immigration.

However, he lays out a set of broad principles on immigration that is somewhat interesting.

From a "left" perspective, he offers an expedited path to citizenship for Dreamers, he urges work in Latin America to improve conditions there to stop refugees from coming to our border, increased legal immigration, especially for certain classes of workers, and a path to citizenship for undocumented people currently in the country. 

From a "right" perspective, he offers increased border security, better rules to prevent asylum from being abused, and that the path to citizenship for undocumented people be pretty rigorous. Somewhere in the middle, he offers an improved guest worker program.

It's pretty clear from looking at the above that this plan tilts center-left. I think Joe Biden would sign this in a minute, even if it did mean money spent on a stupid border wall. This is not the plan for open borders that a certain segment of far-left activists want (but no one else really does). This also reflects, somewhat, Obama's agenda on immigration. Obama beefed up border security to try and offer a carrot to Republicans on other items, like Dreamers and a path to citizenship.

Obama was rejected. I don't see 10 Republican Senators who would support this plan on the merits, much less as a bill that would give Biden a "win" on immigration. 

Bush was a conservative president. He was a neocon, he wanted to privatize Social Security, he was a deregulator and tax cutter. On immigration, he is currently far to the left of his party in Congress. In fact, what Bush has exposed is something interesting. Democrats should seize on this plan, put it into a bill by cooperating with his Presidential Center, and then put it on the floor of the Senate. (Don't force House members to vote on a centrist bill that will never pass and expose them to the wrath of some far-left activists.)  Open negotiations with the Romney-Collins-Murkowski-Portman group. Go whole hog on "bipartisanship" even if it means a flawed bill that spends too much money on border security.

And then watch it fail.

Bush has exposed - perhaps without really realizing it - the source of excessive partisanship ON HIS SIDE OF THE AISLE. Bush introduced something similar as president and his own party rejected it. That party has moved further into nativism and racism since he left office.

I doubt it would move Manchin and Sinema to axe the filibuster, but if you REALLY want to expose how obstructionist the GOP Senate is: force this bill and discussion on them.