Kristol Claims DREAM Act Was Political Ploy by Reid and Obama to Make Republicans Appear Anti-Hispanic
Click here to view this media Another Sunday, another week where Bloody Bill Kristol proves that he’s wrong about everything once again. This Sunday, he claimed that President Obama and Harry Reid were trying to get the DREAM Act passed just to make Republicans appear anti-Hispanic. Sorry Bill, but I think they’ve been doing a pretty good job of that all on their own. KRISTOL: Barack Obama and Harry Reid played politics with this. You know how many hearings there were in either house, in the House and the Senate on the DREAM Act over the past two years? Zero. This bill was brought to the floor of the House, no amendments permitted, passed, brought to the floor of the Senate, no amendments permitted, they failed to get cloture. Is that a way to pass serious legislation? Is this bill so perfectly dreamed up, so to speak, three years ago that we shouldn’t have a debate in committee on it and the normal mark-up and the normal testimony from different experts? It’s a complicated matter dealing with illegal immigration. It was a pure political gambit by Barack Obama and Harry Reid to try to make Republicans look anti-Hispanic and I don’t think it will work. WILLIAMS: It was a political deal by Republicans to absolutely make devils out of anybody who’s come to this country and this is a country of immigrants and the idea that children who were brought here by their parents and who have gone to school and served in our military are not allowed to become citizens. You know, it’s almost anti-American Bill and the reason they couldn’t discuss it was because the talk show hosts in America the right-wing talk show hosts, would beat up any Republican who supported a realistic effort. KRISTOL: Usually when legislation is passed there are hearings, mark-ups; there are expert witnesses… none of those. It was a pure political attempt to jam this through. As Think Progress noted, Juan Williams wasn’t the only pundit on the Sunday shows that pointed out how stupid it was for Republicans to have blocked the DREAM Act — Sunday Show Guests Assail Republicans For Blocking The DREAM Act . And here’s more from that post on why Kristol’s assertion is wrong. As usual , Kristol is wrong. As CAP’s Marshall Fitz noted , “this is not a new or complicated bill”: The basic elements of the DREAM Act are straightforward, well understood, and have been considered numerous times over the last nine years . It has been introduced every Congress since 2001. It passed the Senate Judiciary Committee by a 16-3 vote in October 2003. And it passed the Senate Judiciary Committee again in 2006 by voice vote as part of the McCain-Kennedy comprehensive bill, which passed the full Senate by a 62-36 margin. So it seems that Republicans like to blame process when they’re just simply on the wrong side of history.
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on December 20, 2010. Filed under