Poor Schumacher-Matos

Remember Edward Schumacher-Matos, our local Miami Herald ombudsman? Well, he recently wrote a column in the Tampa Tribune which attempts to debunk the illegal immigration leads to higher crime myth. For the most part, I agree with Schumacher-Matos.

Of course, in order to make his point (or despite making his point), he had to throw people on the other side of the ideological fence from him under the proverbial bus. Namely: Bill O'Reilly and Lou Dobbs. Schumacher-Matos starts off the column in the following manner:

The fury of Bill O'Reilly, Lou Dobbs and other nativists in response to the news that the prime suspect wanted for the murder of Chandra Levy is an illegal immigrant from El Salvador could easily be dismissed as racism. But complicating matters is that most Americans probably agree with them. (Ah, crap. Nothing like other Americans agreeing with those nasty inbred nativists to screw up the ol' "you're a racist for being against illegal immigration" mantra, eh?).

Sounds good, right? Well, Bill O'Reilly got wind of the article and invited our esteemed ombudsman to appear on the O'Reilly Factor yesterday. It wasn't pretty. For Schumacher-Matos, that is. O'Reilly, who is the farthest thing from a racist, immediately and repeatedly challenged Schumacher-Matos on his nativist/racist remark. Schumacher-Matos insisted he didn't call O'Reilly a racist (he's also the same guy who wanted to censor right-wing columnists, so what does he know?). Give the guy credit. At least he showed up and stared O'Reilly straight in the face (with a smug smile the entire time, I might add).

When will some people understand that folks like O'Reilly just want laws enforced and are in favor of kicking illegals out after they are convicted of crimes. Only in this day and age, and only from the left, will you ever see this simple and rational belief get repeatedly and maliciously labeled as nativism (which is little more than the "nice" code word for racist, BTW).