Maybe a local election will solve our problems

John Merli
Published: July 24, 2008

For better or for worse, and probably for better, the divisive, demagogue-rich issue of immigration (illegal or otherwise) has not reared its ugly head within the national presidential campaign — at least not
to the extent that it dominates the far more important issues of the economy and war.

Immigration, to be sure, has become the favorite kicking boy of anyone who needs an escape valve to vent their enormous frustrations over a country that has been stuck-on-stupid for far too long on a
wide array of issues.

To be sure, Lou Dobbs on CNN has built an entire career on examining immigration from top to bottom, side to side, up to down, commercial to commercial, and every other angle, that it’s a wonder he
has time to take a breath. And his ratings are rather good, which is not a great surprise. I suppose as long as someone is out there bashing those “illegals” among us, others will listen.

Needless to say, a once-proud and glorious Prince William County does not need to rely on Dobbs (or anyone else, for that matter) when it comes to providing a fertile breeding ground for local political
types who, God bless them, have cynically and skillfully learned to appeal to the most ignorant and basest of human instincts in order to reap points with what by now must be a somewhat dazed public.

County board chair Corey Stewart seems to have collected more deadly spores of prejudice and cynicism towards his fellow humans before the wise old age of 40 than the rest of us can even hope to
achieve in a long lifetime of bad manners. He has successfully demagogued a place for himself in recent county history that we will not soon forget, or live down.

As mentioned in this space nearly a year ago, the hard-charging crusader, Mr. Stewart, should be likened to the George Bush of Prince William County: It will take us years to undo the harm he has
brought upon Prince William in ways almost too difficult to describe or imagine.  The fact that Stewart surely has his own fan base is evident to anyone who routinely glances over this daily opinion page.
And the fact that he also has his detractors at least gives the rest of us some comfort.

Americans far beyond our county line have taken note of what we have done here in the name of ridding the area of illegal immigrants, and thankfully, most other parts of the nation have chosen not to
follow in what we have allowed to happen here in the past year.  Almost as eloquent as several editorials that have appeared on this page in the past year, the Washington Post got it right this week when
it referred to Corey Stewart as “an avid opportunist and manipulator who has an arm’s-length relationship with public candor” and someone who “had done more than anyone else to plant seeds of discord
and hatred” in Prince William.

Now, a year after this county’s multi-tiered drive to “rid” the rest of us of our once-entrenched Hispanic population (many of whom as legal as the rest of us), we can only look back in horror and ask
ourselves if all the intimidation, the head-scratching confusion by well-meaning police officials, and distrust and hatred spawned by the powers-that-be was worth the price.

If the answer for some of you is “yes,” you are not living in the wrong county anymore. You’re living in the wrong century. Corey Stewart and his kind blow with the wind, but we let it happen — we who
have lived here for decades.

We’re the ones to blame because we knew better than Stewart what was coming. These are sad days for this county. Fortunately, that’s precisely what future elections are for.

John Merli has been a Prince William County resident since 1984, and a Potomac News columnist since 1985. He has worked in the media for more than 30 years. E-mail him at