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Hillary abandons, Obama adopts, illegal driver licenses

After watching Hillary Clinton twist in the wind after her non-answer two weeks ago about about driver's licenses for illegal immigrants, Obama tried to duplicate her feat with this initial answer:

"When I was a state senator in Illinois, I voted to require that illegal aliens get trained, get a license, get insurance to protect public safety. That was my intention. And- but I have to make sure that people understand the problem we have here is not drivers licenses. Undocumented workers don’t come here to drive. They don’t go; they’re not coming here to go to the In-N-Out Burger. That’s not the reason they’re here. They’re here to work. And so instead of being distracted by what has now become a wedge issue, let’s focus on actually solving the problem that this administration, the Bush administration, has done nothing about."

After some prompting from Wolf Blitzer as to whether he supported or opposed the issue, Mr. Obama added this:

"I am not proposing that that’s what we do. What I’m saying is that we can’t. No, no, no, no, look, I have already said I support the notion that we have to deal with public safety and that drivers licenses at the state level can make that happen. But what I also- but what I also know, Wolf, is that if we keep on getting distracted by this problem, then we are not solving it."

Finally, Mr. Blitzer proposed to Barack Obama that the question was actually "available for a yes or no answer" and eventually teased a "Yes" answer out of him.

Hillary, when her turn came up, showed that she had learned a lesson from the previous two weeks, and simply and clearly answered "No.".

I think that Hillary's response of two weeks ago, and Barack's answer this week illustrates two things about the Democrat party in general.

First, they don't have a very good feel for how deep public resistence runs against extending legal privileges and benefits to illegal aliens.

Second, they aren't very accustomed to criticism. That may be a natural side-effect of the approximate 90% Democratic support among the political press in general.

The big loser in this debate was clearly Barack Obama. He either wasn't prepared for an obvious question, or worse, he badly misjudged how to go about giving an answer.

Hillary was the big winner. Part of the credit for that must be assigned to Wolf Blitzer -- who didn't follow up on Hillary's "No", mentioned above. Wolf simply let Senator Clinton put the whole issue behind her -- and on Barack Obama's shoulders.

mail this link | -Ray, November 16, 2007
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