I’m confident that we can continue to be a nation that assimilates

This morning Bush gave a comprehensive speech on the comprehensive immigration comprehensive legislation.

Er, sorry. He used the word comprehensive a lot, is what I’m saying. This sort of thing: “The problem that this bill recognizes, the bill recognizes that we’ve got to address the problem in a comprehensive fashion.”

Repetition was the order of the day: “It’s a powerful incentive to be a mom or a dad to make sure your children don’t suffer. That’s an incentive. That’s an incentive for people here in America; it also happens to be an incentive for people around the world.”

When not repeating his vocabulary words, he rephrased the same things over and over in as many different ways as he could come up with: “The first thing that we’ve got to recognize in the country is that the system isn’t working. The immigration system needs reform. The status quo is unacceptable.” And what, oh what, do we need to do to change that? “Our view is, if the status quo is unacceptable, we need to replace it with something that is acceptable”. That’s why he’s the president and you’re not.

Why is it unacceptable, and not working, and in need of reform? “the system has also fostered illegal operations that prey upon the human being”.

Illegal operations that prey upon the human being. That does sound scary. But so does this: “And I’m confident that we can continue to be a nation that assimilates.”

Tell us more about assimilation, George. “The bill recognizes that English is a part of the assimilation process and wants to help people learn the language in order to be able to take advantage of America.” I don’t know: Chimpy manages to take advantage of America without ever having learned the language. In fact, in the very next sentences, he forgot what the word amnesty means: “You know, I’ve heard all the rhetoric -- you’ve heard it, too -- about how this is amnesty. Amnesty means that you’ve got to pay a price for having been here illegally, and this bill does that.”

Meanwhile, Laura and Jenna were in Dakar picking vegetables, doing the work Senegalese aren’t doing.