"The Fix" In The Washington Post: "Why George W. Bush was right"

The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza has a blog post on amnesty:

Why George W. Bush was right [1]

Posted by Chris Cillizza [2] on January 31, 2013 at 11:57 am

George W. Bush was president of the United States less than five years ago.  You’d never know it by listening to Republican politicians or talking with GOP party strategists — all of whom seem perfectly willing to simply erase Bush from their collective memory. (It’s a sort of political version of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind [3].”)

It’s easy to understand why. The United States’ involvement in the war in Iraq coupled with Bush’s mishandling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the fiscal collapse left his approval ratings — and the broader Republican brand — deeply damaged by the time he left office in early 2009.

But, erasing Bush’s memory entirely overlooks the fact that in one very important way the 43rd president of the United States was well ahead of his time. Bush was an early advocate within the GOP for increasing the party’s outreach to the Hispanic community and, had his party followed where their president was trying to lead, it might not find itself faced with such a daunting political challenge in courting that bloc of voters today.

Bush came up in politics in Texas where, even 15 years ago, Latinos were transforming the state and its electorate.  He — and his senior team including the likes of Karl Rove — understood the looming (and growing) political power of Hispanics innately and worked very aggressively during his 2000 and 2004 campaigns to court Latinos.[More [1]]

And Bush and Rove's campaign for the Hispanic vote [4] was a—how shall I put this?—"miserable failure." [5]

Seriously, if the Washington Post says Bush was right (especially in a blog called "The Fix") then Republicans are bound to think that he was wrong. In fact, they thought he was wrong in 2006, when they wouldn't vote for Republicans in Congress [6], and in 2007, when amnesty was defeated.