Oh, no, David. Are you wearing your M.C. Hammer parachute pants?

Gosh, David, I think you communicated all three situations quite clearly. And re #1, may I say that if an immigration policy has a solid principle OF ANY KIND at its core, it shouldn't be hard to explain at all. Which explains why our leaders and wannabes are turning themselves inside-out trying to do it. We've abandoned any sort of a guiding principle.

I came to work early today--6 a.m.--trying to get out of here early to continue my Thanksgiving preparations. Thanksgiving this year includes my new mother-in-law's first visit to our home. My home is a total wreck, the culmination of a couple of years of disorganization; divorce detritus; a failed experiment with having my indigent, mentally ill brother live with us for a bit; my niece and her young family moving in for six months, and then out; moving my daughter and all her accumulated stuff back home for a year at the local college; moving all my husband's stuff in; moving all my husband's stuff collected over the summer while he worked in Eagle in; and dealing with all the aftermath of my dad's suicide (he lived with us). So I worked my butt off all weekend trying to finally deal with all of this, get it sorted out and put away or thrown away. All that remains is moving my daughter's ferret down into her new room and then shampooing the carpets and doing a general pat-down of her old room, which is now the spare room, in preparation for the mother-in-law visit.

All to say that it's early, and I'm tired, and I honestly first read your #1 as "genetically compatible...program of immigration reform," which, though heinous, strikes me as honest for at least some sectors of our political batcave.

Ugly thought for the beginning of a week of Thanksgiving, no?

And so, to stem this train of thought, and rambling totally off the topic of your conversational thread, I will offer my thanks for you, and your commitment to this correspondence that I've come to look forward to with such great pleasure. I miss those days when time doesn't permit you to post a new thought. I love your fearlessness and honesty.

Thank you, David, for taking the time from all the many demands of daily life to give me and all of us this gift of a reason to pause in introspection.

By the way, I'm descended from a long line of Danish Rasmussens--tell your host I'll bet we're related! Waninks and Rasmussens on my maternal grandma's side.

Eileen, I might as well be wearing a mullett.

Joan, thank you for your kind words. I love this blog, and posting to it is a fantastic release. Do not tell the Ragan people or they will begin withholding even the pittance they pay me to write it. (I got your information about Rasmussen too late, not that I would have remembered to ask him in last night's booze frenzy anyway.)

Jane, I don't think it's a recent development that politicians have abandoned their principles. I really think one of the overlooked problems with this immigration thing is that the country (along with many of its individual citizens) is really ambivalent about this one. I personall haven't heard one proposal from left or right or center or even from behind that's better than the sloppy status quo.

David, I've heard a ton of principled proposals, all pretty much the same, and pretty simple. I hear Americans saying that they want, first of all, to be safe in their own country. Second, they want there to be a logical motivation for people to spend the time and money it takes to enter the country LEGALLY rather than sneaking in. Third, they want there to be a logical difference in the benefits available to citizens vs. non-citizens. I hear no ambivalence on these issues. Business owners and people rich enough to have servants want to pay their employees as little as possible, but the first three desires are nearly universal.

Jane, I agree most people aren't ambivalent about these principles but I think we're confused about how important the issue is—and what exactly to do about it.

We can't stomach amnesty, we can't practically round the peeps up and herd 'em across the border, etc.

All I'm saying is that this, is a legitimately difficult issue. If you think it's simple, lay out the politically saleable, logistically doable step-by-step solution.