Oh Mickey, Not So Fine!

Policy skeptic and uber-blogger Mickey Kaus half-heartedly comes out in favor of a national I.D. card (scroll down to Monday, September 8). In a discussion of how immigration is playing out in California's recall, he writes:

Your Papers, Please! The legitimate argument in favor of giving illegal immigrants driver's licenses is that it would require them to know how to drive and allow them to buy state-mandated insurance. The legitimate argument against it is that driver's licenses function as I.D. and having them would allow illegals to do more or less anything in American society–resulting in a de facto amnesty and increased security risk. Why isn't the obvious solution this: Separate the two functions. 1) Have a national identity card that serves the I.D. function. (This seems like an unfortunate post-9/11 necessity anyway.)…

To his credit, Mickey links to an ACLU page attacking the very idea of such a card. Mickey, read Reason Contributing Editor Glenn Garvin's great story on the subject and then take it all back.