Virginia is making children of illegals pay for the choices of their parents. I imagine that many illegals come to this country and think that if a child is born here, he or she will automatically be an American citizen, entitled to the full set of rights and perks. The Old Dominion figured that one out and decided that your choice to break the law will affect your child. They will not be entitled to in-state tuition for Virginia colleges. The Washington Post tells us the tale of Nelson Lopez.

When Nelson Lopez applied to Virginia colleges this year, it never occurred to him that he might not be considered a state resident. After all, he has lived in the state since he was a baby, holds a voter registration card and will graduate this spring from an Alexandria high school. Then last month, he got an e-mail from the University of Virginia: If he wanted to be considered an in-state student, he had to prove that his parents are in this country legally. Lopez, 18, was born here -- he's a U.S. citizen. But his parents are illegal immigrants.

According to Republican Attorney General Bob McDonnell, who is elected separately from the Democrat Governor, Tim Kaine, it is because college kids are considered dependents until they are 24, so it is their parents in-state residency at issue, not the child's. Illegal immigrants are not legal residents. There is an exception.

The attorney general's memo emphasized that state law allows exceptions on a case-by-case basis, if students 18 or older can offer convincing evidence that they should be considered separately from their parents.

To me, this issue gets hung up on the American-born citizenship issue. I disagree that just because a person is born here of illegal parents, he should automatically be an American citizen. That is a huge incentive for the parents to come here and have their kids. Indeed in border towns such as El Paso, Texas, women specifically come to the hospitals 9+ months pregnant to get the good, free medical care and, more importantly, have an American child. Nevertheless, the law is that a kid born on U.S. soil is an American and I have a hard time denying those people in-state tuition. I don't have any problem denying in-state status to children of illegals who were not born here. They get no break. But America takes care of her people, and these Americans should get a break.

I assume the life of a Mexican hooker sucks. So, many illegally come to the United States to continue the oldest profession north of the border. I guess they come for the perks (better health plans, 401k's, better paying juans) to which their American cousins aspire. But to their shock, the hooker life sucks here too. First, the whorehouses aren't very exotic sounding. Today's Washington Post gives us an example.

The business cards handed to men at a North Woodbridge grocery store didn't say much. Just a first name, a cellphone number and the phrase Casa de Carne, or House of Meat. But their simplicity made clear the illicit purpose: sex

The House of Meat. Good one. Direct and to the point. But despite the cool name, the Post still finds the Prince William County crackdown on illegals to be really complicated when it comes to illegal-immigrant prostitution rings.

Authorities say the cards solicit customers for highly organized prostitution rings that cater to Hispanic immigrants and chauffeur women from out of state. Although prostitution crosses ethnic and racial lines, these immigration-related cases raise complex questions about the interplay of local and federal law and are likely to pose special challenges for Prince William County police in the push against illegal immigration that began this week. The police department has said it will treat illegal immigrants who are criminals differently from those who are crime victims. But in prostitution cases, the women involved might be both.

Let's see. If you are a prostitute, whether illegal-immigrant or all-American girl, it is a crime. So you can't be a victim. If you are in "highly organized prostitution rings that cater to Hispanic immigrants and chauffeur women from out of state," it is still a crime. If you came are here illegally, it is a crime. Not sure where the victims are. But maybe they were coerced, you say.

Before county police began the illegal-immigration initiative, they tried to prepare for every scenario. But a closer look at the rings reveals that the line between the local crime of prostitution and the federal crime of sex trafficking is often blurred in subtle details. Did the women knowingly choose to work as prostitutes? Or were they pushed into it by force, fraud or coercion?

What percentage of illegal-immigrant hookers were dragged across the border against their will and held in captivity as slaves, so the illegal-immigrant pimps can properly service the booming prostitution demands of a suburb like Prince William County? And the Post dutifully gives us our answer: None. They came by choice.

Molina, who works with the District-based La Cl¿nica Del Pueblo and founded a Virginia-based human rights organization for Latinas, said many of the women go from poverty in their countries to poverty in the United States and find themselves bound emotionally, psychologically and economically to the men who brought them across the border. Breaking that bond is one of the biggest challenges, she said. "It's a mixture of hatred and thankfulness," she said. "They know they are exploited and being abused, but this is the same person who helped them cross the border. This is the same person who helped bring all the members of their family and who is going to bring their children."

Then, near the end of the article, we have the kicker. These illegal-immigrant prostitution rings aren't really even in Prince William County after all.

Last year, Prince William police made 44 prostitution arrests. Although many of those cases were unrelated to immigration, Hess said the reach of rings that target Hispanic immigrants "is far greater than what we know."

Many of 44 cases of prostitution had nothing to do with immigration. That leaves what, 10 cases in a whole year? Of that handful, the Post never cites one case connected to these insidious rings the article describes. This is just another lefty hit piece railing against any crackdown on illegal immigration by fraudulently implying that this social cancer is in Virginia. And, bottom line, every person, from the pimps to girls to the juans, seems to be here illegally. If we had properly secured the border, the article would never have been written, because none of these people would be here.

We have less than a month before the Iowa caucuses and Newt Gingrich is in Iowa. He has said he is not a candidate for president. He says:

“This is not about being a candidate,” Mr. Gingrich insisted in an e-mail exchange yesterday with The Washington Times. “It’s about the issues in the proposed platform, including English as the official language of government.”

Mr. Gingrich said 87 percent of Americans favored the English language plank in a national poll his nonprofit AmericanSolutions.com sponsored at a cost of $428,000.

The former speaker said his appearances in Iowa this week are “about a single-page flat tax” (82 percent), a “moment of silent prayer in school” (94 percent) and the “death penalty for anyone carrying out a terrorist act in the United States” (79 percent).

Mr. Gingrich said “this is a center-right country caught between an incompetent right-wing party and a ruthlessly organized, energized, militant, minority left-wing party.”

All of which is brilliant Gingrich crush-the-dems strategy.

But the article speculates that he is running for Vice-President, and with stuff like this, there is no doubt he wants to be, and should be, the veep.

The former House speaker who flirted with a Republican presidential nomination run earlier this year said in a C-SPAN interview on Sunday that he might accept being the presidential nominee’s running mate if offered.

“Depending on the circumstances, I’d be honored to be considered and under some circumstances, I’d probably feel compelled to say ‘yes,’ “

The press has so vilified him over the years (precisely because he is so destructive of liberal dogma) that the regular joe will be shocked at how stunningly articulate and reasonable Newt is when the press can’t select all of the sound bites. The Main Stream Media has set the bar so low for Newt, that when he fails to come to the debates with a welfare baby’s arm in his mouth, the general public will be pleasantly surprised.

Then there was this little tidbit.

Bill Crocker, Republican National Committee member from Texas, said, he “cannot picture Newt being anybody’s No. 2. He has also said he would accept a draft for the Republican nomination for president if it was a true draft. I can much more easily see him in that role.”

It is amazing that the Republican field is so fractured this late in the year. It is because each guy brings one or more, but crucially, not all, of the Reagan ingredients to the campaign. Newt clearly has more of those ingredients than any one of them. I would bet that if Newt announced this afternoon that he would accept a draft to be president, he would win Iowa and the nomination.

Rudy may have disagreements with parts of the Republican base, but tax cuts have always been his game and he’s playing hardball. Lest there be any doubt he’s the real fiscal conservative we have this from Byron York.

The Giuliani campaign has just released a letter from Americans for Tax Reform chief Grover Norquist to Giuliani. In a race in which the candidates are competing for the mantle of top fiscal conservative, this is pretty good:

In looking at the records of all the Republican candidates, yours clearly stands out. You cut the income tax, business taxes, sales taxes, property-related taxes, and nuisance taxes. You are the most successful tax cutter in modern New York history and, on balance, the most successful tax cutter in the Republican field today. If you are elected president, I will look forward to working with you to reduce and reform taxes, restore fiscal discipline, increase government transparency, and pursue pro-growth policies that will improve America’s competitiveness in the global economy.

Glowing. But why did Norquist, who has not endorsed any candidate, write the letter to Giuliani? The answer goes back to the CNN/YouTube debate, in which Norquist asked the candidates whether they would “promise to the people watching this right now that you will oppose and veto any efforts to raise taxes as long as you’re president?” Giuliani, who has not signed the Americans for Tax Reform pledge, said, “Yes, I would.”

Since then, both Norquist and the Giuliani campaign have been in touch. Today, Giuliani wrote a letter to Norquist re-affirming his commitment to cutting taxes, saying specifically that when he was asked last month about raising taxes for Social Security, he said, “I would rule out a tax increase for that purpose or any other purpose.” In response, Norquist wrote back the letter released by the Giuliani campaign.

“This is not the same thing as the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, but it is a public statement that he would veto any tax increases,” Norquist told me a few minutes ago. “It is a written and signed statement.” Norquist said his question at the YouTube debate was intended to give an opening to candidates who have declined to sign the pledge – Giuliani, Thompson, McCain – to nevertheless make a promise not to raise taxes. “Giuliani said yes, and Thompson and McCain both wandered off into other directions and missed the question,” Norquist said. Norquist told me he has written to Thompson and McCain, essentially re-asking his question, but he hasn’t heard back. But Giuliani jumped at the chance with today’s letter. “They knew that we were very pleased with the mayor’s answer to the YouTube question, and I assume they were building on that,” Norquist said.

(emphasis mine)

‘Nuff said.

Peggy Noonan asks whether the inevitable is actually rather, well, evitable. She senses a little unspoken doubt creeping into Hillary’s tone,

Mrs. Clinton is acting as if she’s scared. She insists to Katie Couric that she’s the next president–”It will be me”–and she’s back to using the language of aggression — there’s been a lot of “beat,” as in they’ve been trying to “beat me.” In the first 60 seconds of her Couric interview she used some variation on the word “attack” five times. If Mitt Romney talked like this, they’d be asking who put the Red Bull in his milkshake.

and a distinct lack of “crawling over broken glass” enthusiasm by her supporters.

Inevitable is a good game to play until it doesn’t work anymore. A while back I was speaking to a Democrat who supports Mrs. Clinton, and I mentioned in passing that Obama might win the nomination. “Nothing is written.” The Clinton supporter said, “Well I would love to support Obama if that happens.” It was a standard thing to say, and yet the Clintonite said it awful quick.

I still think Hillary has the nomination hands down. She is the epitome of the establishment candidate. But sometimes enough layers get peeled back and the truth is rather uglier than advertised.

Just what we would expect from this administration on illegal immigration:

The Bush administration said Friday it will modify its planned crackdown on U.S. companies that employ illegal immigrants, asking a federal judge to delay hearing a lawsuit brought by major U.S. labor, business and farm organizations until the new strategy is completed.

In papers filed in San Francisco, Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bucholtz told U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer that the Homeland Security Department (DHS) is making unspecified changes to its plan to pressure employers to fire up to 8.7 million workers with suspect Social Security numbers.

A DHS spokesman declined to comment, but court papers asked the judge to delay the case until March 24 or until a new program is ready.

On Oct. 10, Breyer barred the government from mailing Social Security “no-match” letters to 140,000 U.S. employers, citing serious legal questions about requiring companies to resolve questions about their employees’ identities, fire them within 90 days or face potential fines and criminal prosecution.

President Bush made the initiative a priority in August after the Senate killed his proposed overhaul of immigration laws.

In issuing a preliminary injunction, however, the judge cited plaintiffs’ arguments that the Social Security Administration database includes so many errors that using it to enforce immigration laws would cause “staggering” disruptions at workplaces and discriminate against tens of thousands of legal workers.

Hmmm. The case is delayed until March or until “a new program is ready.” That program is dead.

Ironic isn’t it? The government wants to pressure employers to fire up to 8.7 million(!) workers with suspect Social Security numbers. The plaintiffs, those great Americans at the ACLU, argued with a straight face, that the illegals screwed up the Social Security Database so badly that to use it to enforce the employment laws would be unfair.

When Hillary Clinton wins the White House, she says Bill will be "a roaming ambassador to the world." What that means is rather unclear. We know he excels at roaming. Just ask Monica Lewinsky, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, etc.

But let's say he's conducting high level diplomatic consultations with Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. Women do not have the right to vote in Saudi Arabia, so it is safe to say the Saudis don't have all that much confidence in a woman's political judgment. Let's say the Prince and Bill Clinton start reminiscing about the good ol' days when Bill was President, the treaties, the summits, the girls, the booze, whatever, and the Prince says that he liked Bill's Administration's policies concerning the Middle East better than those of his wife. He reminds Bill of the close personal friendship they developed over 8 years in the 1990's and says that while he appreciates that his wife is now President, that he, Bill, is the guy the Prince trusts. He reminds Bill that it is in the best interest of both countries that they have a harmonious relationship, and that he will not sign on to Hillary's new policy. He wants Bill's.

Hillary is quoted as saying "[Bill] has said he would do anything I asked him to do." Except, one presumes, not lying to her or cheating on her. What if, as a former President, with his own views on issues and, more importantly, his own legacy to consider, he decides to do what he wants? What happens then? Obviously if the Clintons had a remotely civilized marriage, they would talk it out. But we know about Hillary's dispute resolution methods, which involve thrown ashtrays and lamps. Which president will be running the country? Merely having to ask the question dilutes the power of the presidency and the country. We will waste precious energy and time reading tea leaves and statements from the White House and asking, which Clinton is responsible for this decision? We simply will not know.

Charles Krauthammer (from the right) and David Broder (from the left), have both raised this issue of the "two-headed presidency."

Krauthammer says:

It's deep unease about a shared presidency. Forget about Bill, the bad boy. The problem is William Jefferson Clinton, former president of the United States, commander in chief of the armed forces, George Washington's representative on Earth.

We have never had an ex-president move back into the White House. When in 1992 Bill Clinton promised "two for the price of one," it was taken as a slightly hyperbolic promotion of the role of first lady. This time we would literally be getting two presidents.

Any ex-president is a presence in his own right. His stature, unlike, say, Hillary's during Bill's presidency, is independent of his spouse. From Day One of Hillary's inauguration, Bill will have had more experience than she at everything she touches. His influence on her presidency would necessarily be immeasurably greater than that of any father on any son.

Americans did not like the idea of a co-presidency when, at the 1980 Republican convention, Ronald Reagan briefly considered sharing the office with former president Gerald Ford. (Ford would have been vice president with independent powers.) And they won't like this co-presidency, particularly because the Clinton partnership involves two characters caught in the dynamic of a strained, strange marriage.

The cloud hovering over a Hillary presidency is not Bill padding around the White House in robe and slippers flipping thongs. It's President Clinton, in suit and tie, simply present in the White House when any decision is made. The degree of his involvement in that decision will inevitably become an issue. Do Americans really want a historically unique two-headed presidency constantly buffeted by the dynamics of a highly dysfunctional marriage?

Broder, more gently, though in an article titled "The Icebergs Ahead For the Democrats,"

[T]his is a prospect that will test the tolerance of the American people far more severely than the possibility of the first female president -- or, for that matter, the first black president.

As my friend says, "there is nothing in American constitutional or political theory to account for the role of a former president, still energetic and active and full of ideas, occupying the White House with the current president."

No precedent exists for such an arrangement, and no ground rules have been -- or probably can be -- written. When Bill Clinton was president, the large policy enterprise that was entrusted to the first lady -- health-care reform -- crashed in ruins.

The causes were complex, and some of the burden falls on other people -- Republicans and Democrats in Congress, the interest groups and, yes, the press. But as one who reported and wrote in great detail and length about that whole enterprise, I can also tell you that the awkwardness of having an unelected but uniquely influential partner of the president in charge affected every step of the process, from the gestation of the plan to its final demise. She was never again asked to take on such a project.

And this was simply the confusion sown by having the first lady in charge. Put the former president into the picture -- however "sanitized" or insulated his role is supposed to be -- and the dimensions of the problem become even larger.

The spin will be about the "unique benefits" of the collective experience in a Hillary Clinton White House. "Collective experience" works well in any situation where "singular experience" would, by definition, be of lesser value. However, "collective experience" as applied to a White House with two spouses as presidents, is anything but better. It is a multiplier of problems that affects the very core of the power of the presidency.

Rudy Giuliani is the kind of candidate who doesn't display self-confidence so much as he oozes it from every pore.

So noted a recent Wall Street Journal Online article. And that, in a nutshell is why Rudy Giuliani will be the next President of the United States. He is not the philosophical first choice of many Republicans. Fred Thompson is the conservative in the race. But one worries about Fred's killer instinct. It is not the MSM's "laziness" rap. It's just that he may be a bit too laid back and folksy. Mitt Romney, for all his (excessive) polish, seems too programmed. There is something a little Stepford-wifeish about him. McCain+immigration reform=toast. No one else in this field has a real chance.

Republicans have to go back quite a few years to recall a candidate whom they could not wait to have unleashed in a debate against the Democrat. From Bush 41 to Dole to Bush 43, there was always this underlying dread, hesitation, and "If he can just get through this without blowing it, we may have a chance," mentality. Rudy is the biggest rhetorical fangs-out Republican in 20 years. He's got a full grasp of the issues and wields them like clubs. Recall this piece by John Podhoretz, which is a great article:

Rudy may call himself pro-choice. He may have signed legislation mandating benefits to gay couples. He may have been a supporter of gun control. He may even have endorsed Mario Cuomo for governor in 1994. These are all things he's going to have to explain and answer for in Republican debates and the like.

But more than any other candidate in the race, Rudy Giuliani is a liberal-slayer. When he rejects liberal orthodoxy, which he does often, he doesn't just oppose it. He goes to war with it - total, unconditional war.

He spent his political career chewing up liberal orthodoxy and spitting it out - and I think that somehow, in some way, voters in Oklahoma and Kansas get that about him even without knowing the specifics.

His success in turning New York around wasn't merely a matter of changing policies. He had to sustain those policies when they came under deliberate, systematic and unrelenting assault by the city's liberal elite.

In case after case, he refused to accept the veto of liberal public opinion. He drove porn shops out of residential neighborhoods, even though his administration had to fight more than 30 lawsuits on the matter. He crusaded against bilingual education, a disastrous policy that had gone unquestioned in this city for decades.

And most important, he stood up for the police department against any and all attacks - which were incessant and incredibly unjust. The race baiters and their shills at the Not-So-Great Grey Lady talked as though the NYPD was engaging in genocide when the opposite was the case - many thousand of people are alive today who would have died if the NYPD hadn't taken on its newly aggressive posture under Giuliani.

And that was before 9/11.

It is that charisma and vigor that people want in a post 9/11 world. No world leader, not one, will intimidate Rudy. Americans understand that in their gut.

But, you will say, what about all the social conservatives who will steadfastly never vote for a pro-choice candidate. While true, the argument is too simple to carry the day. What about those staunch social conservatives who would be more horrified at a Hillary Clinton presidency, and decide to pull the lever for Giuliani? It wouldn't be the first lesser-of-two-evils votes in a presidential election. What about pro-life leaders like Pat Robertson who could be assumed to be in the never-gonna-vote-for-him crowd? Robertson endorsed Rudy for president last week. His reasons?

At yesterday’s announcement, held at the National Press Club in Washington, Robertson said he chose to support Giuliani because the social issues with which he, Robertson, was mostly closely associated in the past are not the top issues facing Americans in the 2008 election. “To me, the overriding issue before the American people is the defense of our population from the bloodlust of Islamic terrorism,” Robertson told reporters. The second-most important issue, Robertson said, is fiscal discipline. Only after that, he suggested, are the social issues, with the overriding priority being the makeup of the federal courts. “Uppermost in the mind of social conservatives is the selection of Supreme Court justices,” Robertson said, and Giuliani “has assured the American people that his choices for judicial appointments will be men and women who share the judicial philosophy of John Roberts and Antonin Scalia.”

In a similar vein

"It's all about leadership," says Scott Reed, a Republican strategist who ran Bob Dole's 1996 campaign but is unaffiliated this time around. "It's all about him being a tough guy who won't take c--- from anyone. Social conservatives have embraced this and have overlooked the traditional issues of life, marriage and the Second Amendment for the guy," Mr. Reed adds.

Similarly, some conservatives seem to have changed their top priority from social issues to fighting terrorism. They may well view Islamic extremists as a bigger threat than abortionists to the future of Judeo-Christian society, and nobody looks like a better foe of extremists than the former New York mayor who stood strong amid the rubble of 9/11.

Rudy is with the majority of Americans on the front burner issues of the day, and his charisma will be the decisive factor in beating Hillary next year.