The respondent to Herbert’s column is the same person who told me that a conspiracy theory involving China’s purposeful use of lead to lower the USA’s mental acuity would be a waste of lead.
Op-Ed Columnist
Spies Like You and Me
By BOB HERBERT
Published: December 8, 2007
Let the witch hunt begin. Are you now or have you ever been an illegal immigrant?
Are any of your friends illegal? Relatives?
The last place you’d expect to encounter a chilling moment is at a presidential debate sponsored by National Public Radio. But on Tuesday, there was the NPR moderator, Steve Inskeep, asking the Democratic candidates whether American citizens have an obligation to turn in people they suspect are illegal immigrants.
It was not just a question asked in passing. Mr. Inskeep pressed the issue. He asked Senator Chris Dodd, for example, about the hypothetical situation of a “citizen” interviewing for a nanny.
“You interview a number of applicants,” Mr. Inskeep said. “They all seem very nice. They seem like they would take care of the kids. But it would appear that their documents may not be in order. What would you want an American to do?”
Their documents may not be in order.
***
Vincenzo Kolchak of Chicago responds…
Not a bad piece, but the shocker is the depth of swinishness of people like Michael Savage — and in public on the radio. I can’t remember any thing as scurrilous as that in that kind of forum ever. Usually it was in movies about the KKK or remarks attributed to people like George Lincoln Rockwell. Every now and then during the civil rights movement, you could get some poor whites or a particularly backward southern sheriff to talk like that; but generally, American’s sense of public decorum, if not basic values, would not allow it.
Now some guy says it on mainstream radio and his sponsors don’t seem to mind — given his ratings, his listeners don’t either.
Lou Dobbs is very scrupulous about not saying anything anti-ethnic, but he has to take responsibility for enabling it. For people who listen to and agree with Michael Savage, the intensity of Dobbs’ nightly diatribes is code to avoid saying what he really believes about ethnics. I don’t think Dobbs is anti-Mexican, but he never bothers to say that the issue is a political one, not an ethnic one.
Put this column together with today’s Gail Collins piece and you have a chilling sense that any one of the potential Republican candidates could be worse than Bush. Hard to believe, but when you realize that Bush has given incompetence a certain legitimacy, these guys would have an easy time making Bush look sort of OK.