ABC News’ Teddy Davis Reports: Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told ABC’s David Muir Saturday that his support for driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants will not block his path to the White House because he and G.O.P. frontrunner John McCain share substantial overlap on immigration.
“I think they will pounce on any issue that has to do with immigration,” said Obama, referring to Republicans, “but my position has been very similar to John McCain’s, who’s may be the likely Republican nominee, and if he wants to try to parse out this one issue of driver’s licenses, an issue of public safety, my response is that we have to solve the overall problem and this driver’s license issue is a distraction.”
McCain does not support driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants but he shares Obama’s support for giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship without requiring them to leave the United States.
While digesting that piece of good news check out Mark Levin’s fantastic piece on the difference between Reagan and McCain:
Painting Reagan as a tax-and-spend Republican, who basically went along with Washington and appointed a bunch of moderates to the Supreme Court, in an apparent attempt to build up McCain’s conservative and leadership credentials and mollify his critics, has the opposite effect mostly because it is inaccurate. It reminds me of Bill Clinton’s supporters using Thomas Jefferson’s alleged adultery to explain the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Reagan challenged his party from the Right. He sought the Republican nomination in 1968 against Richard Nixon and lost. He sought the nomination against Gerald Ford in 1976 and lost. He fought the Republican establishment in 1980 as well, including Bob Dole, Howard Baker, and George H. W. Bush, and won. McCain has challenged his party from the Left. I don’t know how many more times I and others have to lay out his record to prove the point. To put a fine point on it, when he had to, Reagan sought compromise from a different set of beliefs and principles than McCain. It does a great disservice to historical accuracy and the current debate to continue to urge otherwise.
But we must rewrite history if we are to make the case that McCain is no different from Reagan, Reagan is no different from his predecessors, and Reagan’s speeches weren’t all that revolutionary. And if we object to such characterizations, then the argument shifts to — well, stop making comparisons to Reagan, Reagan wasn’t perfect, the Reagan era is dead, these are different times, etc. Then, if we criticize McCain’s record we are told the tone is troubling, we’re going to help elect Hillary Clinton if we don’t unite behind McCain now (at the beginning of the primaries, no less!), the surge is the only issue that matters, etc.
Look, I do not believe that McCain is a principled conservative. I believe he is a populist hawk in the tradition of a Scoop Jackson. This isn’t a perfect comparison, of course, but nothing is ever perfect, is it?
There is lots of information in between that snip so go read the whole piece.
Mark disagrees with the assertion that McCain would be a good leader in the War on Terror. I disagree with him on that but much of his other assertions are right on.
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