David Broder wants McCain-Huckabee ticket (because of immigration; retransmits Huck lie?)

David Broder offers the completely clueless "Republicans would be wise to tab McCain and Huckabee" (link). He wants that ticket explicitly due to their immigration stances. And, Broder not only fails to do his job but he may be spreading Huckabee misinformation and he's being misleading about a program Huckabee supported:

What sets McCain and Huckabee apart is most evident in the way they treat the contentious issue of illegal immigration. Both of them have been burned by it - Huckabee in a losing battle with his Legislature over tuition breaks for children of illegal immigrants; McCain, for his sponsorship of President Bush's comprehensive immigration reform. Both now acknowledge - as everyone must - that the failure of the federal government to secure the southern border has produced broad public outrage.

As detailed at the last link, those tuition breaks were for illegal aliens themselves, irrespective of the statuses of their parents. Originally I thought this formulation might just be sloppiness, but the more I see it the more I think it must be an attempt to mislead.

Then, Broder lies, calling Rep. Tom Tancredo "rabidly anti-immigrant". And, he (perhaps unknowingly) supports a Darwinistic immigration policy:

Huckabee and McCain always remember that those who struggle to reach the United States across the deserts or rivers of the Southwest are human beings drawn here by the promise of better lives for their families.

As for those who don't make it, and the business of human smuggling, well, I guess that's what Emma Lazarus had in mind. Or something.

Then, Broder a) fails to do his job, and b) may be helping Mike Huckabee lie.

Huckabee was asked to defend a bill he sponsored that the questioner said "gave illegal aliens a discount for college in Arkansas by allowing them to pay lower in-state tuition rates." The former governor corrected him. The bill, he said, "would have allowed those children who had been in our schools their entire school life the opportunity to have the same scholarship that their peers had, who had also gone to high school with them and sat in the same classrooms. ... It wasn't about out-of-state tuition. ... "

By including the "corrected him" bit, Broder is himself assuming responsibility for the following statement; he is calling the following statement correct.

And, it appears that what Huckabee said wasn't correct. Can Broder provide proof of its correctness? Or, did he simply fail to do his job and verify whether it was correct or not?

And, of course, it is about out-of-state tuition and much more: if Huckabee had gotten his way, foreign citizens who are here illegally would have gotten a better deal than, among others, U.S. citizens recently arrived from out of state. It's not just a matter of fairness, bills like the one that Huckabee supported are a direct attack on what it means to be a U.S. citizen. Further, because there are only limited resources, every discount going to an illegal alien means one less available to a U.S. citizen.

Mitt Romney made that point, but obviously it takes a lot to sink through the Beltway "journalism" of David Broder.

Politics · Sun, 12/02/2007 - 13:53 · · Importance: 1