WP, Dionne: Know-Nothings Who Know Better; GOP debate "a depressing spectacle"

[DeepModem Mom]

Know-Nothings Who Know Better
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, November 30, 2007; A23

Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani did a fine job achieving their objectives in Wednesday's Republican presidential debate: Each thoroughly discredited the other. They also disgraced themselves as they pandered relentlessly to the growing anti-immigrant feeling in their party. Mike Huckabee and John McCain were the only candidates willing to suggest what now seems unmentionable: Immigrants, even those here illegally, are human beings and shouldn't be used as political playthings....

The CNN/YouTube debate was a depressing spectacle. There was little inspiration for the future, no sense that Republicans are grappling with why their party has become so unpopular, and few departures from rigid adherence to the party line on taxes, guns, gay rights and a slew of other questions....

***

...there did come the heroic moments from Huckabee and McCain -- moments that may have done them little good with the GOP's primary voters. When Romney attacked Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, for supporting a proposed state program under which some children of illegal immigrants would have gotten help to attend college, Huckabee stuck to his guns. "In all due respect, we're a better country than to punish children for what their parents did," Huckabee said. I hope he's right....At a lunch with reporters yesterday, Huckabee did not back down a bit on immigration. "You can't just pander to the anger and hostility," he said. "If that costs me the election, then the country can pick a different guy."

As for McCain, he seemed disgusted by the odor of the nativist compost being spread around the stage. "This whole debate saddens me a little bit," he said. Of immigrants, he dared to declare: "These are God's children as well, and they need some protections under the law, and they need some of our love and compassion." I hope God blesses McCain for that.

What happened on Wednesday night is actually scary. A legitimate concern over the failures of our national immigration policy is being transformed into an ugly attempt to turn immigrants into scapegoats for all our discontents. The real shame is that both Romney and Giuliani know better.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/29/AR2007112901939_pf.html