For those of us who support the principle that American citizenship should have value and that American workers should not be replaced by foreign workers in their own country, good news came on Saturday: Sen. Bob Bennett has lost his re-nomination fight in Utah.
As expected, the utterly clueless the Washington Establishment is lamenting Bennett's defeat. The failure of an incumbent to secure the nomination of his party is being blamed on a poisonous atmosphere.
I beg to differ. The problem is not in Utah. The problem is in Washington. Sen. Bennett reflected what America despises in D.C.
After voting in 2000 to increase the number of H-1B visas for foreign guest workers that industry uses to replace Americans and to move software development offshore, Sen. Bennett described the political situation this way:
"Once it's clear (the visa bill) is going to get through, everybody signs up so nobody can be in the position of being accused of being against high tech,'' said Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, after the vote. "There were, in fact, a whole lot of folks against it, but because they are tapping the high-tech community for campaign contributions, they don't want to admit that in public."
What Sen. Bennett is describing is corruption. Corruption may be the accepted way of life in Washington (and in New Jersey) but it is not so in most of America.
The poisonous atmosphere does not come from Main Street. The poison is in Washington where members of Congress sign on for bills because they are tapping for campaign contributions. Getting rid of Sen. Bennett is part of getting rid of that poison.