A lot is being said about President Bush "betraying" consevatives with his support of the new immigration bill that sooner or later allows citizenship for illegal aliens. Actually he has been consistent in this as he has in other campaign promises. In fact, he has come close to doing what he said than any other politician I am aware of. I did not agree with his position on illegal Mexican immigrants, and have been suspicious of the 'compassionate conservative' posture, which I think really means bigger government. As is usually the case in elections, I voted for Bush as the "lesser of two evils." Mark Steyn has a similar view to mine, as he wrote below:

I disagree with the President on illegal immigration but I can't honestly say that he "betrayed" me. Most of the stuff the base is mad about are things he openly championed in the 2000 race. He ran the most pro-Mexican, pro-federalization-of-education, pro-prescription-drugs-for-seniors campaign of any Republican Presidential candidate ever. The convention in Philadelphia was a non-stop riot of mariachi bands playing the Cucaracha alternating with cucaracha bands playing the Mariachi. I bumped into my own Senator, Bob Smith of New Hampshire, in downtown Philly and asked him how he was enjoying it. He said he'd tried to get in but he'd been denied entry. That's how multicultural and diversity-celebrating it was: guys with suspicious names like "Bob Smith" couldn't even get past security.President Bush has, broadly speaking, governed as he said he would seven years ago. Unfortunately, a big bunch of sophisticated types in the Republican base told themselves, "Hey, don't worry. This 'compassionate conservative' mumbo-jumbo is just a cunning feint to sucker the media and the swing voters." Au contraire, he meant it.There's a lesson there for Republicans.