Tim Pawlenty takes a stand against immigrant babies

No more free ride, babies!

​Tim Pawlenty took another lurch toward the right wing over the weekend, as the governor went on television to pick a fight with some infants.

The likely presidential candidate told Bloomberg TV that he supports revoking the part of the constitution that guarantees citizenship to babies born on American shores.

"We're the only, or one of the few, developed nations in the world that allows somebody to come here illegally, give birth to a child, and then have the child be a legal citizen of our country," Pawlenty said.

Anti-immigrant activists have wanted for a long time to make those babies illegal, but there's a problem: their citizenship is actually written into our constitution, in the 14th Amendment. A recent court decision reaffirmed this, but Pawlenty's not going to let that stop him. "The only way to trump the court's decision is to amend the Constitution," he told Bloomberg.

Pawlenty's constitutional crusade rounds out a trifecta of nativist pronouncements from the governor this month. Last week he called plans for a mosque near the World Trade Center site unpatriotic and suggested that Minnesota should follow the lead of Lino Lakes and make English the official language of the state.