Working the field, part XIII - Tancredo

Thomas Gerard Tancredo

To be perfectly honest with you all, I don’t feel the need to spend much time on Rep. Tom Tancredo, the 5-term Congressman from Colorado.

He was elected as the head of the Colorado Term Limits Coalition, which advocated a 3-term limits on Representatives from Colorado. Even though the measure failed, he swore that he would limit himself to three terms.

In case you missed it, he’s in his fifth term.

And in case you still aren’t getting it, five is greater than three.

“I made a pledge, I took the pledge, I will live up to the pledge,”

he said in 2001 in reference to his promise to serve only three terms. In 2004, when he had to honor the pledge or break it, he said this:

“I find myself in a position of leadership with regard to [the immigration] issue… I represent [the] best hope for change. I dare not abandon this cause. The U.S. House of Representatives is the forum I have been given in which to use my limited skills for this purpose.”

Apparently, the rest of us didn’t realize that only by having Tancredo in Congress could we prevent Santa Anna from again invading the Southwest.

This and other information is available here. It’s fun reading, actually.

On the other hand, it’s apparently a tradition in Colorado not to honor term limits pledges.

Besides breaking his promises, the other factor that eliminates Rep. Tancredo as a credible candidate in my mind is his lunatic desire to make the US into a terrorist nation.

He has said that in response to a terrorist attack against the United States, we should consider attacking Muslim holy sites, such as Mecca and Medina. Apparently, he is perfectly content to abandon the idea that we aren’t at war with Islam itself.

I have to look at this and argue that this would make us a terrorist nation. In the same way that al Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center just because it contained Americans and was valuable to us, he would have us attack Mecca just because it has Muslims and is important to them.

And that’s without even discussing the likelihood that destroying Mecca would not deter terrorists, but would rather turn the rest of the Muslim population against us.

He’s against abortion and gay marriage, he’s against gun control and supports either the Fair Tax or a flat tax.

Tancredo’s signature issue, though, is immigration. He has been supported by several groups that advocate against illegal immigration and against the use of languages other than English in government. He wants to make sure that illegal immigrants cannot work or receive government benefits, and he promises to secure the border.

He does argue for the normalization of relations with Taiwan, and abandoning any pretense that Taiwan and PDR China are the same nation. This, frankly, is common sense and should have been done long ago. His web site also argues against political correctness, though I’m not sure what the President would be able to do about this.

Ultimately, I can’t take Tancredo seriously. His change of position on term limits is not a huge problem for me — I have in the past favored them but have come back around to opposition — but his inability to deal with the issue honestly and openly shows me a weakness of character. Worse than that, though, is his thinking in regards to pursuit of the war on terrorism. Committing acts of terrorism ourselves on the same or greater scale seems to me to be foolish — and even discussing it as some kind of hypothetical example is foolish at best. It betrays ignorance, recklessness, and — more than possibly — a sentiment that is at least overly-vengeful and likely racist.