Bush's Middle Path Disappoints Both Sides of Divisive Immigration Issue

[ECH1969]

As Jose F. watched President Bush's address from an apartment on this city's Northwest side, he shook his head fiercely at moments: at the prospect of tamper-proof identification cards for legal workers, at the many mentions of increased border security, and at what he saw, in the end, as uncertainty of the future Mr. Bush intended for illegal immigrants like himself.

"I worry about the militarization and whether this will mean more deaths on the border," said Jose F., 27, who sneaked in from Mexico nearly eight years ago and who asked that his last name not be used because he feared losing his job at a social services agency, deportation or both. "And identification cards will only make it harder to survive, and people will have to go further underground and work for cash."

San Francisco, where the president's speech was broadcast on a television above the jukebox at Los Jarritos, a popular Mexican restaurant, Dolores Reyes, an owner, disagreed with nearly every point Mr. Bush made. Ms. Reyes said she favored amnesty and objected to the idea of deploying the National Guard to the border.

"This is very inadequate," Ms. Whiteford, 76, said. "That's about the number of police in Fort Worth and Dallas." If Jose F. and Ms. Whiteford were any indication, Mr. Bush managed to disappoint people on both sides of the immigration debate on Monday night.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/16/us/16react.html?hp&ex=1147838400&en=426293d44951e52a&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Erika]

1. Neither Bush nor his administration has a clue

How sad for us.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Really, did not realize that

Really... yes it flopped, majorly

[opihimoimoi]

3. Bush and his distractive minutiae

Why does this man avoid the larger picture?

Perhaps he cannot solve the crap he foisted on us?