Saturday morning digest

- Apparently the twin Democratic successes of the tax-cutting, Cold Warrior Kennedy and the free-trading, budget-balancing and welfare-reforming Clinton don't register with the bright lights over at The Nation. Here, they unwittingly offer a way to entrench the GOP as the majority American political party for good. How they can ignore what's going on in France right now, which is a crystal clear indicator of why socialism doesn't work, is beyond me. Perhaps they are just choosing to pretend it's not happening, because the proof is right there for all to see.

- Not surprisingly, the current leader of the Democratic Party, Howard Dean, is up to his old tricks. This time he stopped just short of calling the President a racist because - wait for it - there is a bill in the Republican-dominated House of Representatives that is much tougher on the issue of illegal immigration than the one both Dean and the President support, currently in the Senate. Evidently, the President's refusal to support the House bill didn't make it into Dean's talking points.

Not only that, support for traditional marriage and a dislike of setting the bar lower for minority applicants to colleges is also evidence of Bush's white heterosexualist supremacy, according to Dean.

When are the Democrats going to move beyond race-baiting? Keep talking like this, Howie, and you'll find yourselves on the outside looking in come this November's Congressional elections once again.

See here:

Democratic Party chief Howard Dean accused President Bush and the Republican Party on Friday of exploiting the immigration issue for political gain by scapegoating Hispanics.

Dean and Bush agree on the legislation at the heart of the debate. Both support a Senate bill that would expand guest-worker programs for an estimated 400,000 immigrants each year.

However, at a speech in an Oakland union hall, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate sought to tie Bush to a much tougher House bill that would tighten borders and make it a crime to be in the United States illegally or to offer aid to illegal immigrants. Bush does not back the House bill.

"This is a nonsensical proposal put out by far right-wingers in the Republican Party who have been endorsed for re-election by the president of the United States," Dean said. "The president has a moral obligation to rein in the right-wing extremists in his party and stop this divisive rhetoric about immigrants."

Dean devoted much of his short speech here to the immigration debate, which has taken center stage in Washington this election year and touched off mass demonstrations elsewhere. More than 500,000 immigration-rights activists marched in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, largely to protest the House measure.

Bush has spent his political career courting Hispanic voters, the nation's fastest-growing voting bloc, and he has helped double the GOP's share of the Hispanic vote since 2000.

Nevertheless, Dean accused Bush and fellow Republicans of demagoguery in the immigration debate, saying it fit with a long-standing pattern. He cited the president's opposition to the University of Michigan's affirmative-action program and Bush's decision to "pick on" homosexuals - an apparent reference to the gay marriage issue in the 2004 election.

"In 2006 it's immigrants. That's what their strategy is on the Republican side: divide people, scapegoat them, set them aside, point the finger at them," Dean said. "Well, that may be good for the Republican Party, but it's bad for America, and we're not going to do that."

During his remarks criticizing Bush, Dean was interrupted by a shout of "Impeach!"

- Gas is once again approaching a buck a litre and it is expected to remain at that price through the summer. Here's a good look at why it's imperative that the West's oil dependency be dealt with pronto.

- On a personal note, some of you know that next month, I'm going to be getting married. This has caused me to think a lot lately about what marriage, family, and being a good man really means, and I'm sure that regular readers have noticed that that's one of my favourite topics to blog about. Here's a great piece that I had to share about making a vow and sticking to it.