PRESTOPUNDIT

GLENN REYNOLDS comments on a topic he usually steers clear from -- immigration: Quotable:

Immigration brings us [America] the best and the brightest from all over the world.

In Africa they call this the "brain drain". We take the doctors, we take the scientists, we take "the best and the brightest", we take the people who might have helped turn these places around. The folks most likely to remain in tyranny and poverty are left behind. As a result, the prospects for democracy and liberty abroad is weakend with the "best and the brightest" missing in action and gone to America. Without these folks, most nations in the world are rather doomed. This is another part of immigration story no one discusses -- the effect of American immigration on the rest of the world. The story isn't always a positive one for those countries who have lost the people most likely to value freedom, democracy, entrepreneurship and hard work.

And Glenn is completely wrong about this:

there's a lot of anger about the largely uncontrolled nature of American immigration. You can see it on Web sites, and hear it on lower-rung talk-radio programs

Actually the highest rated talk radio programs in the nation focus extensively on the immigration problem -- there is no bigger talk radio station in the nation than KFI Los Angeles and no more popular show on that station than John and Ken. Similiarly, Roger Hedgecock rules San Diego -- and he also happens to be the #1 substitute host on the #1 talk radio show in the nation, the Rush Limbaugh show. So Glenn Reynolds just has his facts wrong.

There is a big immigration debate taking place in the comments section at the Hedgehog blog. The Hedgehog revises his own remarks here. Quotable:

The most disturbing phenomenon is the seemingly reflexive name-calling and pigeon-holing that is going on among conservatives .. I hereby renounce the use of the term "nativist" to describe people who disagree.

Any conservative who uses this dishonest carnard should be ashamed. Dishonesty is simply no way to persuade anbody. If folks want to support the President on this one they will have to come up with true and real arguments for their position -- if these don't exist then the "my party right or wrong -- and I'm willing to lie when the party is wrong " approach isn't going to fly. Hugh Hewitt has more on the GOP's immigration / border security problem here. (Note well -- in California Hugh Hewitt's radio show goes head-to-head with the John and Ken show, and as a sub-text John and Ken took a huge bite out of Cong. David Dreier's hide in a "safe" Republican seat as a result of Dreier's weak record on immigration. Dreier is now a regular guest on the Hugh Hewitt show. The issue of immigration rarely comes up.) Posted by Greg Ransom