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Rove: “I Wish We Had Led the Second Term With Immigration Reform”

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Today, Karl Rove — the strategist who was once referred to as “Bush’s Brain” — told an interviewer from the New York Times that leading off President Bush’s second term in 2005 with immigration reform would have “given everybody a bipartisan victory.” Oh, and it would have “done something important for the country,” too.

The full quote:

“As I said in the book, I wish we had led the second term with immigration reform. If we had led with immigration reform at the beginning of the second term we could have had bipartisan cooperation with a Republican majority in the House and the Senate and done something important for the country that was tilted more toward what the Republicans wanted but couldn’t have passed without Democratic votes instead of Social security which Democrats wouldn’t participate in until they had a taste of victory. Immigration reform would have given everybody a bipartisan victory and would have cleared the ground for entitlement reform.”

An impressive endorsement from someone who’s not typically accused of being oblivious to political realities in Washington.