The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutierrez Read Online Free PDF Page A

the Puritans, who came to run the morals of a nation. All these years later, their teachings that dourness is good and laughter is bad still cause Washington to make the control of strangers of great importance. If they are not white, then they come from the devil.
    There was an afternoon in the House of Representatives in Washington when Peter King watched warily as Rick Lazio walked toward him.
    King, a Republican congressman from Long Island, was standing in the aisle and Lazio, then another Republican congressman from Long Island, came on an errand on behalf of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich. It was over a bill that would allow immigrants without papers to be deported, right at theairport if found there, with no hearings. Tackle them in airports and at borders, tie them up, and send them back like packages. No hearing or evidence would be required.
    “The Speaker wants to know what we need to do for your support in the future,” Lazio said.
    “Don’t bring around any more bills like this,” King said.
    The bill was sponsored by Lamar Smith, a Republican congressman from Texas, a state that resents and reviles all Mexicans, although they will hire them for $3 an hour. It was cosponsored by Alan Simpson, then a Republican senator from Wyoming, which had 430,000 residents at the time and enough room for the population of a couple of countries.
    One part of the bill said that “secret evidence” was allowed at immigration hearings. The phrase brought on an ancient fury in King, who had been all through this during his struggles to get a travel visa for Gerry Adams, the Catholic leader from Northern Ireland. King wanted him to speak to the American Irish. The State Department said there was “classified evidence” that Adams was a danger. They said that they owed it to the British government to keep Adams out. It took years for King to get the decision overturned, during which time his distrust became permanent. Now, on this day in Washington, King stood in the Congress of the United States and looked at the phrase “secret evidence.” He saw it as un-American. He voted no. And he would vote no on any other immigration bill of its kind.
    Later, walking back to his office across the street from the Capitol, he was saying, “It comes out to be fear, I guess. The idea of a bunch of Mexicans walking around the country—it frightens them. If you ask any questions about immigration, nobody has an answer. They feel it is something so bad that you don’t have to explain it.”
    Now the names have changed. Gingrich of Georgia made everybody furious. Then his moral purity was slightly marred by one girlfriend and he was out. Suddenly, about to take his place isRobert Livingston from Louisiana, a sure antiterrorist. He wanted executions of immigrant terrorists, and if they weren’t caught with a bomb, the gas chamber still would do. Livingston is on the floor of the House, about to be voted Speaker of the House. He decides to display his dislike for President Clinton. He calls over to the Democratic side that President Clinton should resign because he is an immoral pig with a girlfriend, Monica. The Democrats rise and shriek, “You resign! You resign!” They are telling each other the news that Livingston has four girlfriends. He has them in motels. Livingston happens to glance upward. He sees two of his four girlfriends. “Motel Livingston!” people shout. “You resign! You resign!!”
    “All right, I will,” he says. He walks off the floor. His chief supporters run to the back to pick a successor, Dennis Hastert. This one doesn’t know Irish without papers or a Mexican. The whip, Rick Lazio, soon is gone. He is replaced by Tommy Reynolds from New York, whose field of interest is Niagara Falls.
    And nothing changes. Peter King still goes to his seat ready to oppose any and all bills. None comes up.
    Motel Livingston now stalks Capitol Hill as a lobbyist for Turkey. Somebody in the House