Bush Is Smart on the Border — and the G.O.P. Isn't

With their get-tough-on-immigrants stance, Republicans have blown an opportunity to guarantee a GOP majority in perpetuity

In an outdoor press conference held across the street from the Capitol last week, Representative Tom Tancredo—the Colorado Republican who has made a name for himself, momentarily, by bashing illegal immigrants—pretended to be mystified by his more moderate Senate colleagues. "Who are you responding to?" he asked of them. "Nobody," he answered for them. None of the gazillions of citizen-patriots calling his office had expressed anything but dismay over the illegal aliens—a term that makes it sound as if the country were being invaded by Martians.

That was, of course,...

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