Bush prays

Every year President Bush attends the National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast. I think he’s missed only one all the years he has been president.

Last year he told the group that deportation was not a viable option in the enforcement program. It was at last year’s prayer breakfast that he made the famous, “That ain’t gonna work” speech.

This year he began his speech with this comment, “At this breakfast we set aside our politics and come together in prayer” and then proceeded to talk about his immigration bill!

One of his statements was, “We've got to create a lawful way for foreign workers to fill jobs that Americans are not doing.” He’s changed his tune a bit. He used to say…"jobs Americans won’t do”. No more. He’s being soft here, as though that changes his intentions.

Note the sudden urgency as Bush tells them, “Each day our nation fails to act, the problem only grows worse.” I suppose it hasn’t occurred to him that over 3 million of them have crossed into the United States since he became president? Perhaps he should have said, “Each day I have failed to act, I have made the problem worse.” After all, he didn’t need Congress to give him permission to enforce the existing laws. In fact, some years he didn’t even spend all the money allotted.

Bush said something else rather intrigueing. He said, “We must meet our moral obligation to… show compassion to the vulnerable and exploited.” He just described THREE BILLION PEOPLE around the world. Surely the Mexicans are not the most destitute people in the world. Surely those people he is legalizing are not the most needy. If we were to reach out with compassion to the poorest people in the world first, they would not be the self-selected ones he is inviting to stay.

I’m afraid that our president did indeed get a little political at the breakfast this year.