Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson pleads with Republicans to make peace with illegal immigrants in today’s Washington Post. Gerson once again argues that politics (winning more Hispanic votes) is more important than principle (following the law). It’s the same type of nonsense we heard from Gerson this summer when President Bush and Sens. Teddy Kennedy (D.-Mass.) and John McCain (R.-Ariz.) tried to sell an amnesty bill to the American public.

Gerson begins his piece by chastising presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani for taking a tough stance against illegal immigrants. Gerson implies that the tough talk is a turnoff to the growing Hispanic population.

It is a strange spectacle. Conservatives are intent on building a more appealing, post-Bush Republican Party. But their most obvious change so far is to reverse remarkable Republican gains among one of the fastest-growing groups of American voters. The renovators seem more like the wrecking crew.

Gerson’s idea of a “more appealing” party is one that features a candidate (or in this case president) who supports amnesty for illegal immigrants. Although Gerson once again denies that Bush’s comprehensive plan amounted to amnesty, it was “undeniably amnesty” in the words of constitutional scholar Matt Spalding, my colleague at the Heritage Foundation.

With his eye on the 2008 general election, Gerson cites the political benefits of rewarding lawbreakers with amnesty — or at the very least turning a blind eye to the security aspects of the immigration debate.

I have never seen an issue where the short-term interests of Republican presidential candidates in the primaries were more starkly at odds with the long-term interests of the party itself. At least five swing states that Bush carried in 2004 are rich in Hispanic voters — Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Florida. Bush won Nevada by just over 20,000 votes. A substantial shift of Hispanic voters toward the Democrats in these states could make the national political map unwinnable for Republicans.

But what’s perhaps most absurd is Gerson’s comparison of the illegal-immigration debate to the civil-rights struggle of the 1960s. He notes that Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater’s vote against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was so symbolic that blacks stopped supporting Republicans.

Now Republicans seem to be repeating history with Hispanic Americans. Some in the party seem pleased. They should be terrified.

Outlawing segregation in 1964 is far different from rewarding lawbreakers in 2007. But in Michael Gerson’s mind, winning the Hispanic vote is much more important. He apparently sees no problem using bad public policy to advance the establishment GOP’s political agenda.