If you've been wondering how the friendship between former Sen. Fred Thompson and Sen. John McCain would affect the presidential race and Thompson's decision to run, I think you can stop wondering. Thursday night in Connecticut, Thompson laid into McCain's current signature issue - immigration reform - and in just a few sentences destroyed McCain's position as one lacking in credibility with the American people.
The New York Sun reports:
On the topic of the day, immigration, he let loose. "We are now living in a nation that is beset by people who are suicidal maniacs," Mr. Thompson said, laying into the recent proposed compromise, engineered by Senator McCain, that would provide legal status to millions of currently illegal immigrants while ostensibly strengthening border enforcement. "We're sitting here now with essentially open borders."
"They don't get it that putting it on a piece of paper anymore, even passing it into law, does not convince the American people that they will do what they say they're going to do," Mr. Thompson thundered.
Neither Congress nor the federal government - nor John McCain - have an ounce of credibility on the immigration issue. We were told in the 1980s that amnesty+increased border security would solve the problem, so we watched Congress give amnesty to 3 million illegals - and do nada about border security. Now we have 12 million more illegals. So last year McCain and the Congress promised to build 700 miles of fence.
No fence has been built - and the current immigration reform bill proposes just 370 miles of border fence - on a 2000-plus mile border - before we give amnesty, er, I mean a "path to citizenship" for the 12 million.
Well, the 12 million aren't going anywhere - they can wait a bit for their "path to citizenship" while we build the fence. And building the fence is the only way Congress will rebuild its credibility on immigration reform.
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