President has found the center

President Bush came to Orange County this week and made political leaders in Newport-Mesa look like extremists on the issue of illegal immigration. The president emphasized in a talk in Irvine that illegal immigrants should be treated compassionately and that a guest-worker program is the proper way to handle the millions of illegal immigrants already in the U.S.

“You can be a nation of law and a compassionate nation at the same time,” he said.

In contrast, Costa Mesa’s City Council is set to have city police officers enforce immigration laws by checking the legal status of those arrested on felony charges, a plan pushed by Mayor Allan Mansoor and Councilmen Eric Bever and Gary Monahan. Costa Mesa’s Rep. Dana Rohrabacher has been a strong critic of the guest-worker program and did not attend the president’s talk. And Newport Beach’s Rep. John Campbell, who won his seat late last year in a race that was largely focused on immigration, also said Bush’s plan has flaws.

These Newport-Mesa leaders now have to decide if the fringe is where they want to be.

Some, we assume, will happily remain where they are. Rohrabacher throughout his career has not worried about lining up with the majority of the Republican Party.

“He is proposing measures that will make it worse, not make it better,” Rohrabacher told the Pilot in reference to the president. “All of his suggestions, whether they call it guest worker programs or whatever, include the provisions to normalize ? an illegal’s status. You can spell it any way you want ? it’s amnesty.”

Mansoor and Bever have shown no signs of altering course. Mansoor, who also did not attend Bush’s talk, said afterward: “I’m not necessarily in agreement with what the president wants?. What I’m proposing in Costa Mesa is the very least the American public is expecting from their elected officials.”

Others, however, might want to consider joining the mainstream, where Bush and the Republican Party are on the issue, and where we believe the majority of the nation and the people living here are as well.

Campbell, certainly, should avoid parroting what his fellow Southern California congressmen are saying. Having beaten back the anti-illegal-immigration Minuteman Project in the election, Campbell should be staking out territory that represents the vast swath of his district. He no longer needs to be running scared on this issue.

And then there is Monahan, who in Costa Mesa has been the swing vote on any number of issues, but most importantly on the closing of the city’s job center and its plan for immigration enforcement. Rather than maintaining the city’s clear path regarding immigration ? one that was not conceived by liberal Democrats but by fellow Republicans such as former mayors Peter Buffa and Sandy Genis ? Monahan has turned to the right on this issue. Sadly, it may be too late for him to turn back.