Jingoism Redux

"We're a nation of immigrants." -- Mitt Romney

"All they will call you will be deportees." -- Woody Guthrie

   The story of America, said Marco Rubio at the GOP Convention in Tampa, is "the story of a man born into an uncertain future in a foreign country. His family came to America to escape revolution ... struggled through poverty and the Great Depression," and in November, "his son, Mitt Romney, will be elected President of the United States."
   Huh? George Romney, auto tycoon and governor of Michigan, was an immigrant? From Mexico?
   Who knew?
   But then, John McCain was born in Panama, so that makes him an immigrant.
   And Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona before it achieved statehood, so maybe he was an immigrant, too.
  But they were Republicans, whose parents were citizens, so that's all right.
   What of Barack Obama, born in Hawaii to a mother from Kansas?
   Phoebe Zeno, founder and president of the Amurca for Amurcans Legion, said, "That doesn't count, because he's a Democrat and his father was African."


   Our resident philosopher Pug Mahoney pointed out that under the slick veneer of praise for immigrants in convention speeches runs a wide current of jingoism, expressed in harassment of farm workers, voter ID laws and calls for those of questionable status to "self-deport."