August 12, 2007

McCain (lamely) confronted on immigration in New Hampshire

Shortly before reiterating that he supports a "guest" worker scheme and amnesty but is just taking a different tack to get his goal, Senator John McCain was able to deflect a poor question. This shows once again that simply ranting or asking open ended questions doesn't work, you have to ask tough questions about past statements or actions. Here's the "question":

"I'm terribly concerned there's real danger we're going to lose our country from within... Even if we make English the national language, what difference does it make if you can vote (in Spanish), if where everywhere you go, the hospitals are obliged to provide interpreters? We need one language."

That's followed by ~~Fox's~~ the Associated Press' editorializing:

McCain said he believes more must be done to require immigrants to learn English, but matched her suspicions with some of his trademark straight talk.

And, McCain's response:

"I'd also like to tell you that in my state of Arizona, we like the Hispanic heritage. We like the food. We like the music. We like to have Hispanic influence on our state and we are enriched by it," he said, reminding her that similar fears greeted waves of Irish, Polish and other immigrants in generations past. "I understand your concern that our traditions and our culture and background are being overwhelmed by another culture, but I believe we're stronger than that."

Hopefully someone will reference his (no doubt canned) response when asking him specifically about the differences between past immigration and the current variety.

Posted to Immigration2007b at August 12, 2007 12:33 PM