Dedication

So Tom Tancredo just got his shot to ask questions in the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing with Petraeus and Crocker, and as he came on I thought to myself, "Now how is he going to fit 'illegal immigration' into this?"

Turns out the way he does it is by asking Gen. Petraeus to comment about reports of MS-13 gang signs in Iraq. The MS-13 reference is a dogwhistle; they are a Salvadoran gang whose presence in the United States is commonly used by anti-immigrant sources as an example of the perils of the Mexican menace.

Petraeus said he never heard anything about that.

You almost have to admire the single-mindedness of someone like Tancredo. It's almost a parlor game to try and come up with a House hearing where he WOULDN'T reference immigration. Fortunately, we won't have to play that game much longer; he's leaving office at the end of his term.