Ho hum, why can’t these guys on both sides of the aisle control themselves when they get to Washington?  Check out the stories.  Here is one from Fox News, he is some ‘pillsbury dough boy’ middle-aged guy with a sick wife at home .  Where have I heard that before?  Oh yeh!  Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards (sans the double chin)!

So why am I mentioning Souder?  He was a squish on immigration—one of many Republican squishes.   Here is a story on Monday where he was asked about the possibility of Indiana following Arizona with a state law to clamp down on illegal immigrants in the state.  Read the whole thing, but note this quote:

Souder says, “This is so divisive, and the Hispanic community is so large. And in our area, quite frankly, people just don’t understand… many who are legal. It leads to a tinge of sounding racist and biased. People need to be very careful. This is not about immigrants. This is about illegal immigrants.”

Why is that so interesting besides being a squishy answer?  His district includes Ft. Wayne where a huge public controversy erupted recently over a spitting incident in a laundromat (start reading here and follow links back for full story) which caused an employee to post a sign that read essentially —no Burmese permitted!   That is why Souder is so concerned about distinguishing legal vs. illegal immigrants in that quote.  He is pandering to his large immigrant/refugee population and just wants the tension gone without taking on the issue head-on.

In fact Souder has done virtually nothing over the years to solve the tension in his district except bring more federal tax money to Ft. Wayne for refugees which in essence keeps the fires of controversy burning over the ever-growing refugee community there.

Unfortunately, I haven’t the time to do this post justice, but use our search function for Souder and note that we have written about him on several occasions over the years.  Be sure to especially see this post from January 2008 where I criticized Souder on his handling of the mushrooming refugee situation.

Maybe the folks of Ft. Wayne can now elect someone who has at least the intestinal fortitude to address the immigration problems in that city!