I’m not a huge fan of the “counter-intuitive” style that Slate’s Mickey Kaus usually practices, but this LA Times op-ed about similarities between President Bush’s approach to the issues of Iraq and immigration is surprisingly convincing:

Mainstream editorialists like to praise President Bush’s immigration initiative as an expression of his pragmatic, bipartisan, “compassionate conservative” side, in presumed contrast to the inflexible, ideological approach that produced the invasion of Iraq. But far from being a sensible centrist departure from the sort of grandiose, rigid thinking that led Bush into Iraq, “comprehensive immigration reform” is of a piece with that thinking. And it’s likely to lead to a parallel outcome.

It just shows Kaus can do good work when he bears down. His 1992 book The End of Equality is particularly excellent.