The Anti-Bush Anchor

"Do Republicans want to continue in the Reagan tradition of American optimism and faith in assimilation that sends a message of inclusiveness to all races? Or will they take another one of their historical detours into a cramped, exclusionary policy that tells millions of new immigrants, and especially Hispanics, that they belong somewhere else?

"Admittedly that paints with a broad brush, but politics is often about broad symbolism, and this is roughly the Republican choice presented by President Bush's approach on the one hand, and that of Tom Tancredo and his platoon of talk-show hosts and Tory columnists on the other.

"Let us quickly say that not every American concerned about immigration is part of the latter group. The breadth of new immigration, legal and illegal, in recent years has literally changed the face of America. Our own view is that this has been mostly for the better--in revitalized inner cities, a younger workforce to fuel a dynamic economy, and in general helping America avoid the senescent future of other industrial nations...

"This is not Ronald Reagan's view of America as a 'shining city on a hill.' It is the chauvinist conservatism usually associated with the European right."

And Newt is pessimistic as well:

"A dozen years after he engineered his party's takeover of Congress, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is warning that his fellow Republicans could be swept out of power themselves," says the Boston Globe .

"'They are seen by the country as being in charge of a government that can't function,' he said in an interview last week. ''We could lose control this fall.'"

Maybe he's just trying to rile up the base.

While the Journal likes the Bush immigration plan, Josh Marshall most assuredly does not:

"I can see the merits of an immigration policy that lets in lots of immigrants and I can see the merits of one that lets in much fewer immigrants. But a guest worker program -- especially one that envisages large numbers of immigrants here to work on a semi-permanent basis with no prospect or ready access to a path to citizenship -- is wrong. We're not Kuwait and we're not Germany. It's bad for America to have a permanent class of residents who are here for their labor but who are permanently barred from becoming citizens. It's bad for our society. It's bad for the immigrants. And it's bad for citizens who have to compete for jobs against an inherently exploitable class of whatever amounts to 21st century coolie labor.

"No surprise President Bush is big in favor of such a bad idea. Bad economics, bad civics, bad social policy."

In the Washington Monthly, Kevin Drum uses the fox-and-henhouse analogy:

"Hey, guess who President Bush has nominated to head up the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division? That's right: the guy who represented Wal-Mart in trying to prevent a class of 1.5 million women from suing the company for discrimination in pay and promotions! He also appears to oppose pretty much every regulation related to wages and hours ever passed.

"What a perfect nominee. If he didn't exist, the Republican Party would have to have invented him."

The man who CBS radio had billed as the next Howard Stern sounds like he's on his way out. Jeff Jarvis is on the case:

"Well, David Lee Roth is back on the air, but it's not the David Lee Roth who was taken off the air a few days ago. He announced this morning all the things he's not allowed to be -- which was all the things he was. No music. His cohorts are gone. He has to talk about the news and sports. He has to change subjects every X minutes. They will hire him a Robin. They even hired extra security for the floor but I don't know what they'll do: keep his sister out? He got a four-page letter from his bosses detailing all these things or there will be 'disciplinary action.' He even hints of insipid racism in the orders: 'no more black guy, no more black music' is one of the orders, he says.

"Even though I thought he was a disaster on the air, I sympathize with Roth -- as Stern has. CBS is turning the post-Stern disaster on their air into Roth's fault. But it's not."

Chicago Trib columnist Rick Morrissey throws a high hard one at his parent company:

"Go, Cubs. No, I mean it: Go, get out of here.

"By 'here,' I mean Tribune Tower. Please. The Wall Street Journal is the latest publication to wonder in print whether an ailing stock price and a struggling newspaper industry will prompt Tribune Co. to sell the Cubs. Tribune Co. has said the club isn't for sale. Say it ain't so.

"A newspaper has no business owning a baseball team, in the same way a newspaper would have no business owning a cell-phone company, an insurance company or any other company it might have to cover as a news story."

Finally, some couples who met online and then married are now getting divorced:

"Some divorce cases, for example, highlight false claims made in the online profiles that led to the initial attraction," says the Wall Street Journal . "In addition, of course, there are the natural perils that can come with getting to know a person virtually instead of the old-fashioned way."

People lie on their profiles ? Wow! Don't they think they'll get caught?