I know he’s one of the sacred cows of the liberal blogosphere, but lemme just say that I think Jack Cafferty is a dick. Don’t get me wrong, when he’s on he’s on. His “Caffery File” reports are often the only bit of sanity to be found on CNN and he’s got a knack for cutting through the bullshit, like he did a week and a half ago :

JACK CAFFERTY: Guess what Monday is? Monday is the day President Bush will speak about an issue near and dear to his heart and the hearts of many conservatives. It’s also the day before the Senate votes on the very same thing. Is it the war? Deficits? Health insurance? Immigration? Iran? North Korea?

Not even close. No, the president is going to talk about amending the Constitution in order to ban gay marriage. This is something that absolutely, positively has no chance of happening, nada, zippo, none. But that doesn’t matter. Mr. Bush will take time to make a speech. The Senate will take time to talk and vote on it, because it’s something that matters to the Republican base.

This is pure politics. If has nothing to do with whether or not you believe in gay marriage. It’s blatant posturing by Republicans, who are increasingly desperate as the midterm elections approach. There’s not a lot else to get people interested in voting on them, based on their record of the last five years.

But if you can appeal to the hatred, bigotry, or discrimination in some people, you might move them to the polls to vote against that big, bad gay married couple that one day might in down the street.

After a rant that brilliant, you can understand how disappointed I was to see this reactionary segment later the same day :

JACK CAFFERTY : As members of the House and Senate try to reconcile an immigration bill, here’s something they might want to think about. The number of legal immigrants coming into this country will increase by 20 million over the next 10 years if the Senate’s version — that’s the amnesty version of the bill — becomes law. That’s according to a government report.

The report says it will cost taxpayers more than $50 billion for the new guest worker program, plus the cost of welfare, Social Security, and health care payments. These costs would be offset by $66 billion in tax revenue from the guest worker program, along with fees the immigrants would have to pay.

The study fails to take into account the almost one million people who enter the country legally under the current law. That would boost the 10-year total estimate of new immigrants to 30 million the next 10 years. The report leaves out those who would cross the border illegally, and there would be a bunch of them despite new technology meant to stop them.

Remember we did this in 1986, gave amnesty to illegal aliens who were already here. Nobody knows for sure, but according to a study done by Bear Stearns, there are 20 million illegal aliens in this country right now. So obviously amnesty doesn’t work.

Here’s the question: Can the U.S. afford the Senate’s immigration bill, which could increase the population by 20 million legal immigrants in the next decade?

What happened to the guy who was able to cut through conservative spin and call out a wedge issue for what it is? Disappointed, I emailed Cafferty who, to his credit, wrote me back. Here’s our exchange :

Me :

You’ve joined immigrant hawks like Lou Dobbs and the conservative members of the House in incorrectly describing the Senate bill as an “amnesty”, but the Senate bill requires immigrants to pay back taxes and fines before allowing them to try to become citizens. According to Webster’s dictionary, “amnesty” is “the act of an authority (as a government) by which pardon is granted to a large group of individuals”, so how is a bill that requires fines and back taxes a pardon? It seems to me that any bill that falls short of sending every Mexican back across the border is going to be called “amnesty”, but the current Senate proposal is much, much harsher than the real amnesty bill you derided from the Eighties. That bill failed because big business and their well-trained government toadies decided that laws against employing illegal immigrants weren’t worth enforcing. If there is an immigration crisis (and from what I’ve seen, the bigger crisis they’re concerned about in Washington is poll numbers), then the crisis is the result of a coordinated effort to look the other way while low-skill and lower-wage jobs were given to immigrants who didn’t have the legal standing to realize they were being exploited. This fight isn’t American vs. immigrant, it’s big business vs. worker. I figured you of all people would recognize that, Jack.

Jack :

They are here illegally. Allowing them to stay and get on a path to citizenship is amnesty. Send them home and tell them to apply to enter the country the legal way.

Me :

A fine is a punishment. If there’s punishment then it can’t, by definition, be an “amnesty”. If you’re contending that the Senate bill isn’t an adequate punishment for sneaking into the country to work, then so be it, but try to make that argument without disingenuous rhetoric.

Besides, sending everyone back would work fine (in theory) if the “long lines” people complain about weren’t an issue. The way things are now, our immigration quotas don’t accurately refleck our country’s needs. We’re still bound by an immigration law passed in the mid-60’s that states no more than 7% of our immigrants can come from a given country.

Jack :

With our population at more than 300 million I’m not convinced we need ANY additional immigrants. Those days are over.

Well, there you go. Suddenly the righteous rage about immigrants being here ILLEGALLY is revealed for what it really is. Seal the borders and keep the foreigners out. “Those days”, however you may define them, “are over”.