Demo uses loopy logic in campaign

It didn't take long for the political season to go from hard ball to harder ball.

No sooner had the national conventions ended than Jason Chaffetz, the former field-goal kicker running for the U.S. Congress as a Republican from Utah, had his immigration policy blasted and ruled wide right by a sitting Democratic congressman from California.

Interesting timing, considering Chaffetz's immigration policy has been in place on his Web site since January.

And Election Day is less than eight weeks away.

The California congressman, Mike Honda, criticized Chaffetz for suggesting that illegal immigrants be held in detention facilities that have been referred to as "tent cities."

Honda likened the idea to the internment camps Japanese-Americans, himself included, were forced into during World War II as America waged war with Japan.

In 1942, when he was less than a year old, Honda, now 67, was sent with his family from California to a relocation center in eastern Colorado, where they remained for nearly two years.

Honda called Chaffetz's comments "more than just offensive and embarrassing to all Americans — they demonstrate a blatant disregard of the need to be vigilant in remembering the lessons learned from a disgraceful chapter in U.S. history."

I'm an American, and the only comments I find offensive and embarrassing are Rep. Honda's.

To compare the World War II internment camps to today's immigrant issue is like comparing night to day, yin to yang, black to white, Obama to McCain.

They're exactly the same, other than the fact that they are entirely different.

The Japanese-American internees weren't found guilty of anything and were put behind bars. Illegal immigrants, by the very definition of the term, are guilty but are often not put behind bars.

Worse, Honda suggested Chaffetz's immigration policy "fuels resentment toward targeted ethnic groups," implying racism. That prompted Chaffetz to demand an apology, saying Honda "stepped over the line there."

Leaped would be more like it.

Honda can argue all day that imprisoning illegal immigrants is the wrong way to go, if that's how he feels, but bringing ethnicity into it and comparing it to a wartime policy he calls "one of the most shameful periods in American history" is the definition of non sequitur.

The Japanese-American internees were locked up because of their race and not their actions.