The Santa Barbara News-Press article "Latinos feel let down by governor" by Melinda Burns contains the following quote from "Carmen Herrera, an organizer for PUEBLO, a Santa Barbara-based group that advocates on behalf of the poor":

"The governor has always said he does not support immigrants, and he never misses an opportunity to remind us of that... I don't understand why. He, too, was an immigrant once. He has been through what many of us have been through. But he has forgotten... A license is not a luxury; it's a necessity and it's our right. We wash dishes and clean houses and take jobs many Americans won't take. And we pay taxes."

Obviously, the first sentence above is a lie. And, as far as I know Arnold did not sneak over the border nor did he get a visa with the intention of overstaying it.

And, as they say over and over, a driver's license is a privilege and not a right. In this organizer's world, anyone can sneak over our border and, as long as they get a job as a dishwasher, immediately obtain legal California ID.

And, after everyone in the world is given California ID, what's next? Obviously, voting rights. There's nothing in the organizer's "logic" that couldn't be equally applied to such rights. Think it won't happen? Consider this:

A UCLA study says California's constitution should be amended so the state's four and a-half million non-citizen adults can vote in local elections...

The author of the study - a former president of MALDEF - even compared not giving voting rights to apartheid. If the Santa Barbara News-Press is going to print pro-illegal immigration propaganda like this article designed to put driver's licenses in the hand of illegal aliens, do you think they - or all the other propaganda organs that print PIIPPs - won't consider voting rights just the next beachhead in the struggle?

We're starting down a very slippery slope here, and those corrupt Republicans that support massive illegal immigration are giving the U.S. a mighty push.

As for the article itself, if the muted photograph of the "organizer", the subtitle ("Local groups say driver's license veto is dismaying"), and the overall tone weren't enough, consider the first paragraph:

Local Latino groups expressed dismay but not surprise on Friday after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he would veto a bill allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain legal driver's licenses.

Normally, wouldn't you expect that to read "allowing illegal immigrants to obtain legal driver's licenses"? Do you think this was changed, and, if so, was it done manually or automatically?

Let's ask Joe Cole, president and publisher: jcole *at* newspress.com