Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois gets the glowing-profile treatment from the Washington Post’s Style section today, the first time they’ve done so for a Democratic congressman since . . . oh, April 28, when they wrote a lengthy story on Patrick Kennedy overcoming his addictions.

Today it’s that Gutierrez is “making immigration reform a personal cause.” (Good, because so many politicians focus their time and energy on impersonal causes that they don’t really care about.)

Deep within the piece, Post staff writer David Montgomery can almost bring himself to point out that Gutierrez is advocating a policy that amounts to amnesty for illegal immigrants through blatant emotional manipulation:

The strategy is designed to project the most sympathetic image possible — illegal day laborers hanging outside the 7-Eleven are a harder sell — and to show that the issue is more complicated than illegal vs. legal, more gut-wrenching than statistical arguments over labor supply. Let there be citizens with cancer in front of the cameras, children separated from their parents. The more tragic or appalling the story, the better. Gutierrez is aiming directly for the tear ducts of the American people . . .
He freely admits that the cases in each city on the tour are cherry-picked by professional organizers for maximum impact. So what?
“Emotion is important, it drives you to wish change to occur,” he says in his office a few days later, gulping a Coke, his favorite energy drink.

Indeed, emotion is very important when you want to ensure that people do not think through the consequences of their actions. Ironically, when I want the “change to occur” that the U.S. government actually controls who comes into the country and who doesn’t, I’m allegedly only feeling the emotions of fear and hate, while Gutierrez is using sympathy and empathy and bunnies and puppies and all of that.

The article also includes this perfectly revealing statement: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “heard the testimonials and dubbed raids that separate families ‘un-American.’”

When cops raid a criminal’s hideout and arrest him, they’re separating him from his family. Is that “un-American” too?