The GOP Leviathan on the Border

Republican House Speaker John Boehner pulled the plug on his immigration reform plan after his fellow Republicans gave it a cold reception. Raising an issue on which the party is so hopelessly divided would kill its chances of the winning the Senate in November. That is probably correct, but the bigger issue is why is immigration such a divisive issue for Republicans? One reason is that the anti-immigrant animus of rabble-rousers like Ann Coulter.

No sooner did Boehner release his reform "principles" than she went on the attack bandying surveys showing that immigrants will "wreck the country" with their Big Government-loving ways. "It's not their [Republicans'] position on amnesty that immigrants don't like," she harrumphed. "It's Republicans' support for small government, gun rights, patriotism, the Constitution and capitalism."

"But if Republicans love liberty and small government," I note in the Washington Examiner, they sure have a weird way of showing it.

In fact, there are at least four ways in which their immigration reform plans will expand the leviathan state and warm Thomas Hobbes heart.

Go here to find out what they are.