Saturday, May 20, 2006

Bush: Hable inglés o usted debe irse

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)--The White House bravely took both sides in a dispute over English being the national language Friday, as a broad immigration bill aimed at providing millions of dollars to Bush Family cronies in the fencing business moved toward a final Senate vote next week.

Bush's support for the dueling sides doesn't stray from his long-held wish to learn English himself, said White House Channel anchorman Tony Snow.

"What the president has said all along, among other things, is that he wants to make sure that people who become American citizens have as much command of the English language as people who become president," Snow said. "It's as simple as that."

The Senate on Thursday approved an amendment sponsored by Senator James (Not Gay) Inhofe (R-OK), that would declare English the national language. Errors in grammar and syntax would be punishable by fine, on a sliding scale depending on the offender's first language. But it also approved an alternative proposal sponsored by Senator Ken (Not Mexican) Salazar (D-CO), designating English the nation's "common and unifying language" while there's still time. Before the vote on the alternative, Inhofe smashed a bottle of cheap tequila over his head and shook his fists at his colleagues, sneering, "You can't have it both ways, faggots."

The White House seemed to. "We have supported both of these," Snow said of the two amendments. "And we still do."

Attorney General Alberto (Torture Boy) Gonzales, speaking Friday at the Star Bath House in Houston, added to the confusion.

"The president has never supported making English the national language," Torture Boy said, fanning out his twenties in anticipation of another game of Hot Rico. "I don't see the need to have legislation or a law that says English is going to be the national language. But I'm not very interested in laws."

As governor of Texas and a presidential candidate in 2000, Bush supported bilingual education programs he never intended to fund. He sprinkles Spanish into his presidential speeches whenever his handlers tell him to, and has released political commercials in Spanish when drunk. But he also has said the national anthem should be sung in English, since its words were inspired by a war with England and its melody stolen from an old English whorehouse tune.

The president plans to address the need to buy fencing from Halliburton in his weekly radio address Saturday, right after the "Top Ten Ways to Distract the Public From Your Criminal Incompetence" segment. He has generally favored a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants that would keep them working for less than minimum wage as long as possible, as well as a guest worker program that would bring more foreigners to the U.S. to fill jobs in the rapidly-expanding McHousecleaning and McLawnmowing industries. Both are central elements of the bill before the Senate.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), an ardent opponent of the bill, conceded Friday it is likely to pass next week. "The Senate is basically just a big, reeking pustule," he said. But he also predicted to reporters that it won't become law unless House and Senate negotiators are able to fill it up with corporate giveaways and maybe some religious stuff.

The adoption of Inhofe's amendment drew a heated protest Friday from Latinos, but it was in some other language.

New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici, the only Republican to reject the Inhofe proposal, said the country should "move beyond the notion that English, and English only, will ensure the future of the United States. I mean, there's Arabic, for example."

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