Now King George Wants to Compromise

Today in the news, President George Bush commented on the immigration bill that is working its way through Congress. It apparently contains a section that would allow illegal immigrants to establish a legitimate basis for staying in this country.

He indicated he could live with that aspect of the bill, in order to get it passed and signed into law.

He observed that what we don't want to sacrifice the entire bill, just because it isn't perfect.

Think about it. This is coming from a man who has threatened to veto bills or actually did veto bills because weren't "perfect enough" in his estimation. Bills on genetic research... Bills regarding the war in Iraq...

Why allow for compromise now? Indeed, why now? I suspect not just because he now faces a very unfriendly Democratic majority in Congress , as well as not a few Republican representatives and senators who no longer want to be so closely associated with him. And certainly not because he is making any pretensions of becoming a "uniter" of the American people. Why now, when it matters very little what he aspires to do over the next 18 months. Perhaps it is a vain effort to reframe how the public sees him... it comes too little and too late for anyone to even begin to take him seriously. If it is because he desperately wants to salvage something... anything, that could plausibly called a legacy for his 8 years in office, it is too late for him to do that either.

I don't know exactly why Mr. Bush is finally arguing for the passage of a bill by asking the members of Congress to be reasonable about the bill. As if he has tried to be reasonable about anything during the last six and a half years of his administration.

Bottom line: Mr. Bush is simply deluded if he thinks that anyone in the US will take those words seriously, given that they are coming out of his mouth.