The Price of GOP Orthodoxy
Jules Witcover

There's a certain irony in the latest squabble in Republican ranks over immigration.

Two of the 2012 presidential candidates regarded as among the most conservative -- Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich -- and the one most mistrusted as not truly conservative -- Mitt Romney -- appear to have switched hats in the matter.

Perry and Gingrich in separate instances have demonstrated uncommon GOP compassion for illegal aliens and their kin, while Romney displayed a rigidity and toughness toward them. Perry defends a Texas law that extends state college tuition to undocumented immigrants under certain conditions, and Gingrich opposes the deportation of older "illegal" parents if doing so would break up families that have established roots here.

Romney, along with Michele Bachmann, criticizes Perry and Gingrich for their unconservative lapses into humanity, calling the Texas concession a "magnet" that draws more undocumented immigrants. And both of them decry Gingrich's sensible response as "amnesty" for law-breaking border crossers -- a complaint in which they are joined, curiously, by Perry.

Perry defends his support of the Texas college tuition policy on grounds that the state legislature approved it. Gingrich says his plan would not provide any road to American citizenship, as others have suggested, but would merely give some legal status to the longtime resident aliens in order to keep their families together.

Bachmann claims, and Romney implies, that Gingrich would block the deportation of up to 11 million illegal immigrants, conjuring up a ludicrous image of the ousted hordes streaming back across the Mexican border. Gingrich, in a brief encounter with reality, calls that prospect a pipedream, impossible to accomplish.

In a gesture toward compassion rare for him and his party, the former House speaker observed in the recent CNN debate: "I don't see how the party that says it's the party of the family is going to adopt an immigration policy which destroys families that have been here for a quarter-century. And I'm prepared to take the heat for saying let's be humane in enforcing the law without giving them citizenship, but by finding a way to create legality so they are not separated from their families."

Gingrich, in that one answer, handed the Scrooge cap he's worn for years in the eyes of many voters over to Romney, whose relentless effort to endear himself to the unyielding conservatives controlling today's Republican Party seems endless.

There was a time in the GOP when a plea for a dollop of the milk of human kindness would be well received by many of the faithful. That was when there was such a thing in the party as a liberal Republican, personified by the likes of Nelson Rockefeller and Jacob Javits of New York, Ed Brooke of Massachusetts, Clifford Case of New Jersey, Mac Mathias of Maryland and others.

Just as significant was the breed of moderate Republicans, such as Howard Baker of Tennessee, John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky, Mark Hatfield of Oregon, Charles Percy and Bob Michel of Illinois, and Gov. George Romney of Michigan, father of Mitt. Even that dynamic duo of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew were individually considered moderates for a time in the pre-Goldwater, pre-Reagan days.

One is hard-pressed now to name an heir to Rockefeller in the party's ranks, or even any who will own up to being a moderate. Beyond Richard Lugar of Indiana, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Scott Brown of Massachusetts, few in the Senate are willing to risk the wrath of the party's right wing, and lately the tea party appendage. And fewer still can ever be accused of being a bleeding heart -- that favorite derogation of what used to pass for looking out for the other guy who's hurting or one reason or another.

So when it comes to what George W. Bush used to call compassionate conservatism, Rick Perry and Newt Gringich find themselves on the griddle in their own party for offering even the slightest imitation of a liberal or moderate Democrat on this one issue. On the other hand, neither Romney nor Bachmann is likely to accrue many brownie points by harping on this minor bit of GOP apostasy.