Bill O'Reilly loses out to Karl Rove on immigration reform debate

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Bill O'Reilly and Karl Rove went at it on the "O'Reilly Factor" the other night on immigration.

The heated exchange typified the thunder on the right on the issue of immigration reform, but the lack of any real policy to deal with the issue.

O'Reilly was caught out by Rove on this one with Rove essentially saying it was very easy for the right to slam Bush and now Obama on immigration, but yet they offered very little in return.

Here is some of the testy exchange;

O’Reilly: Look, look. Under President Bush, you put in the virtual fence. 50-million-dollar virtual fence.

Rove: We started the virtual fence.

O’Reilly: Erected, Mr. Rove. $50 million wasted. Wasted.

Rove: No, no. No not at all. We had — hey, look, bill, you have got to try everything. We put up the fence.
We put up sensors that did work. Watch tours that did work. We tried everything. You can’t start something as important as this and throw as much money as we did and expect to have everything work perfectly.

O’Reilly: That’s a good point I cede that point.

Rove: We doubled the size of the border patrol and tripled the budget. Bush ended 30 years of the practice of catch and release where we took “OTM’s” (other than Mexicans) and released them on their own recognizance and we ended that practice by spending a lot of money.

O’Reilly: Mr. Rove, you guys did some good things.

Rove: And so did president Clinton.

O’Reilly: You were slow. It took me five years to pound you guys into sending to the border. After five years of pounding me did you it that was far too slow.

Rove: I hate to tell you but governors had something.

O’Reilly: I let you had yours. Let me have mine. You were slow to get the guard to the border. That’s a fact. The second thing is, this is the most powerful country on earth. We can control the South Korean border but we can’t control the southern border. You are right. Some sectors, San Diego, some parts of Texas, are virtually impenetrable, they can’t get through, Arizona, New Mexico, other parts of Texas you can imperial county, California. And that is a disgrace for the most powerful country in the world. The federal government can do this. Go.

Rove: Bill, you know, your analogy that we are like north and South Korea, armed states, we aren’t. We aren’t north and South Korea. We have millions of people south of the border who are trying to come a cross a very long and very porous border. It’s gotten a lot tougher. Give the border patrol and the government some confidence that they’re doing a better job.
 

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