Takin' Care of Bidness

Grace has an excellent post up today, concerning the Wee Emperor and The Base:

Bush's enthusiasm for reckless privatization, ruinous tax cuts, tort reform, potentially catastrophic deregulation, fierce protection of energy interests, and dubious faith-based programs was already in evidence in Texas, as was his well intended but askew passion for education "reform." And he was always a genuine and tearful sucker for immigrant success stories, as well as an astute appreciator of the importance of cheap and unregulated immigrant labor for key business sectors.

So why the shock and wailing among conservatives in particular and Republicans in general about Bush's immigration stance, his support of the expanded Medicare prescription drug program, and his willingness to run huge deficits and debt? I guess they didn't look at his record.

Backlash conservatives and the Christian Right never looked much beyond Bush's born-againisms, his antichoice stance, and his longtime role as "a professional derider of the sixties."** Like them, he hated experts, real and imagined coastal elites, and dirty fucking hippies. Praise the Lord.

But Backlash Conservatives also fear the Vermination of America, and worse vermin than dirty fucking hippies, Michael Moore, and Cindy Sheehan are illegal aliens, especially those coming up through the Mexican border.

Well, competing political interests collided and push came to shove.

Dubya took care of bidness.

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

As I wrote before, I probably disagree with Grace about more things than not; and I'm pretty skeptical about her catalog of Bush's enthusiasms; apart from some purely throwaway talk, Gee-Dub's only demonstrated enthusiasm has been for the shedding of blood. His enthusiasm -- nay, his passion -- for running the war machine surely leaves little room for any competing interests. Grace reminds us, though, of the Decider's transcendance of ideology, as traditionally understood. He is going to amnestize (is that a word? well, it is now, as far as I'm concerned) all them Met-sicans ... and it has not a single thing to do with liberalism, or conservatism, or libertarianism, any more than it has to do with Free Silver. If you want a name-brand frame of reference in which to understand Dubya, Marxism might work better than most. It's a class thing. Dubya knows, without having to think about it -- it's bred in the bone -- that things go better when there's an ample supply of cheap labor. The cheaper, the better. An abundance of semi-underground illegals keeps wages low for the whole lower class, foreign and domestic alike. In the short term (the only term there is for most Americans), this is good for most kinds of "bidness." It's also very good for those who prefer not to overpay for nannies, maids, gardeners, and pool boys.

It doesn't make Bush a lib'rul. It doesn't make him a Democrat. It just makes him a loyal member of his class, that's all. What's the fuss about, anyway?

As for you Republicans who are now all cruelly disillusioned: you were determined to get your war on, at any cost. So just add this to the cost ... and be quiet for a little while, OK?