I hate to find myself in any sort of agreement with Rudy Giuliani. And the fact that I am finding myself in agreement with Rudy Giuliani is probably not a good sign for his chances in the Republican nomination contest.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not endorsing here. I've still got some problems with Da Mayor: autocratic tendencies, 9/11 as the answer to everything rhetoric, etc. But consider the following:
Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani said illegal immigration is not a crime, prompting rival Mitt Romney to accuse him of not taking the problem seriously.
"It's not a crime," Giuliani said Friday. "I know that's very hard for people to understand, but it's not a federal crime."
Giuliani's comments came in an interview with CNN Headline News and radio talk-show host Glenn Beck.
"I was U.S. attorney in the Southern district of New York," he said. "So believe me, I know this. In fact, when you throw an immigrant out of the country, it's not a criminal proceeding. It's a civil proceeding."
Illegal immigration shouldn't be a crime, either, Giuliani said: "No, it shouldn't be because the government wouldn't be able to prosecute it. We couldn't prosecute 12 million people. We have only 2 million people in jail right now for all the crimes that are committed in the country, 2.5 million."
My own attitude is "open the borders or tear down the Statue of Liberty." But I'm not running for the Republican presidential nomination.
Relatively few GOP primary voters have passed the bar. Their legal understanding rises about to the level and rhetoric of Rep. Tom Tancredo, Know Nothing-Colorado: "Enforce the law." Perceived softness on immigration helped scuttle the chances of Sen. John McCain, Formerly Viable-Arizona, and cost George W. Bush a few points of has last remaining residual support. And, as noted above, the Mitt is already attacking on this statement.
The condescending tone of "I know that's very hard for people to understand" doesn't help win friends, either.
Giuliani already has base problems with his complex family life, his failure to worship zygotes, and his lack of obvious, gut-level homophobia. I really think the don't make me press 1 for English Republican base isn't going to care about the legal niceties of his argument. In the context of a Republican nomination contest, "illegal is not a crime" is sure to go down as this year's "I was for it before I was against it."
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