Christine M. Flowers: An Obama-nation on immigration

HE'S AT it again.

First, Barack Obama insulted rural Pennsylvanians, among others, by calling them bitter, clinging to their guns and religion. He said it at a private fund-raiser in San Francisco wine and cheese country, where the sky is as blue as the voters, and apparently thought the rubes would remain blissfully ignorant of his disdain.

But the guy is big on bilingualism. And now he's trying the same thing again - this time in Spanish.

The Obama campaign has just come out with new TV and radio ads trying to link John McCain with racism. And he's given this smear a "muy caliente" multicultural twist. The TV ad features derogatory comments about Latinos presumably made by Rush Limbaugh on his radio show. Limbaugh, of course, is unhappy. He says that his comments were taken out of context. (In an election year, imagine that!)

But I don't care about Limbaugh. For one thing, he and I are borders apart on immigration reform. For another, he's perfectly capable of defending himself against the junior senator of Illinois and his crew.

What I do care about is the false impression Obama is trying to create by encouraging Latinos to believe that John McCain and George Bush are not only racist but anti-immigrant as well.

Flashing pictures of the GOP candidate and the president in the same frame, a disembodied voice implies that "they" derailed immigration reform.

It goes on: "John McCain and his Republican friends have two faces. One that lies just to get our vote and another, even worse, that continues the failed policies of George Bush that put special interests ahead of working families."

But these are the facts, folks:

For the 12 years that I've been practicing immigration law, there have been only two Republicans who actually worked in a major public way toward getting a reasonable solution to the immigration problem.

Both of them are pictured in that dishonest commercial. At great political risk, both men - McCain in particular - tried to work with their ideological opponents to create pragmatic and effective legislation that would reduce the size of the undocumented population in this country.

Bush had his doomed guest- worker program. McCain entered into a shotgun marriage with Ted Kennedy and proposed workable comprehensive immigration legislation that was distorted by a label that made compromise impossible: "Amnesty."

Neither Bush nor McCain were successful in their efforts because of congressional gridlock brought on by fierce public opposition. Ironically, this was one of the few times that rank-and-file Democrats and Republicans agreed on something: Secure that border first.

That battle will continue well beyond this election cycle. And I continue to hope that the misleading labels are erased, and we can finally talk some sense about immigration.

But the time is obviously not now, and the person to do it is definitely not Obama.

What the Democratic nominee is trying to do is appeal to a demographic he desperately needs in November.

The senator from Illinois is trying to convince Latino voters that he's on their side and that the other guy is aiming to deport their families. This is what his Spanish-speaking surrogate says on the radio: "Don't forget that John McCain abandoned us rather than confront the leaders of the Republican Party."

Nice way to twist the truth.

MCCAIN HASN'T "abandoned" immigrants.

What he has done is take a step backward and indicate a desire to find some common ground where immigration reform will not be stymied by the same gridlock that doomed his original proposal.

But Obama seems to think if he just keeps beating that drum long enough, voters will fall in line. They won't need to know if the lyrics are true - they'll just fall for the seductive rhythms.

In pandering to Latinos who voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton during the primaries, Obama has shown that, contrary to his campaign's accusations, he's the one playing the race card in this election. Only this time it's brown, not black.

Que verguenza. And I'm sure Obama knows what that means: "That's shameful!" *

Christine M. Flowers is a lawyer.

E-mail cflowers1961@yahoo.com.