Karl Rove's Immigration "Gaffe of the Year"

Big-time blogger Mickey Kaus of Kausfiles has picked up on Karl Rove's all-too-true comment last week defending the Bush immigration reform plan. Kaus calls it the "gaffe of the year."

According to press reports, Rove offered a family example:

I don't want my 17-year-old son to have to pick tomatoes or make beds in Las Vegas.

Kaus follows with this interesting question: "Has Rove accidentally ripped the mask off the vicious social inegalitarianism of Bush's immigration plan?"

Ah yes, the perils of telling the unvarnished truth. Few American parents want their children to be field hands or maids, of course. But someone has to do the work and, few if any American parents are pushing their children to do the grunt work that keeps this affluent society humming.

Bush's solution, Kaus notes, is a guest worker program that gets foreigners to do the grunt work, but sends them home when their tasks are done. It's unfair, perhaps, but at least Rove's kids won't have to dirty their hands with manual labor.