(Indianapolis, IN) - If there's one thing I hate, it's an easy target.  First of all, everybody's already got an opinion on high profile idiots - which means I get 150 responses to a commentary.  Second, I feel like the 300-pound lineman who waddles downfield on the kickoff and merely jumps on a pre-existing pile of little, fast guys (football metaphor...had to be done).

But there are some easy targets who richly deserve the pile-on.  And Pat Buchanan, professional asshole, is one of them.  Without going into too much detail (because, at The Greenberg Commentary, we're all about ill-informed, ad hominem attacks with little or no substance), Pat Buchanan is America's answer to Jean-Marie LaPen.  This grandson of poor, Irish immigrants has made a living by distorting American history in regard to World War II, acting as the loudest purveyor of economic isolationism, and attempting to
rewrite the historical importance of immigration to the United States.  In 1996 - and, still, today - Buchanan advocated placing a giant wall along the US-Mexico border.

Now, Buchanan has made yet another foray into the absurd by claiming that immigration is causing the "Balkanization" of the United States.  That's right..."Balkanization."  Yeah.  In case you hadn't heard, Rhode Island and Massachusetts have been fighting a bloody war for months.  And it looks like thousands of Connecticut residents were slaughtered in the last war with Massachusetts.  Lotta hatred there.  Something about a negative reference in a Hawthorne novel. Or maybe it was an argument about William F. Buckley's true blue-blood roots.  Who knows how these things get out of hand?

The following is from CNN's report on Buchanan's speech this week at the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace (stop laughing):

     "Buchanan on Tuesday blamed 'mass immigration' for a list of  social woes, and warned that the process is fragmenting the United States into 'separate ethnic nations within a nation' and driving down wages.  He said crime and prison populations have increased in some regions where new immigrants have settled in large numbers, and he contended that immigration has depressed wages. Buchanan criticized a U.S. policy that favors prospective immigrants with relatives here, rather than their education and skills, and promised to change it."

It appears that Buchanan only wants immigrants who are well-educated and skilled.  We know from past comments that he would prefer these immigrants to be white.  He wants them to come here and thoroughly assimilate.  Bad news, Pat.  America has always brought in the world's "rejects" and has always allowed herself to be culturally changed by them.  Any non-Jew who uses the word "schmuck" is a living testament.

Between 1892 and 1954, over 12 million immigrants were processed through Ellis Island alone.  Over 40% of current American citizens can trace their roots through that one portal into the United States.  The Ellis Island-Statue of Liberty Foundation estimates that 80-85% of those immigrants spoke nary a word of English and most claimed little education or trade skill.

The fact of the matter is that we are a mutt nation.  Yes, we have racial inequality.  Yes, we have tension between people of different backgrounds.  Yes, there is racism and anti-semitism and lots of other tawdry isms.  But, when you can go to a Latino Fair in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana and get really good flan while listening to some rockin' good salsa music...you gotta admit it's an incredible country.

So, rather than heed Buchanan's dire predictions about the evils of immigration, I think I'll reread Emma Lazarus' poem about the "Mother of Exiles" and the values that made the United States great; and that made entering "the golden door" a ticket to freedom and opportunity:

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
 

AND THE DANNY GOES TO:
Reminding you that the rules prohibit the Danny going to the subject of the Commentary, this weeks big dummy is Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) who sounds like he just stepped out of an episode of Leave It To Beaver.  If he says "doggone it" or "by golly" during a debate just once more, rumors inside the Beltway say that Jerry Mathers is going to come from behind a curtain and slap him.  My roommate, Dave, put it best when he said, "Maybe later he'll take his best girl down to the soda shop for an orange phosphate."  I'm
taking up a collection to make a $1000 contribution to Hatch for President if he'll say, "God damned so'm'bitch!"