What is wrong with these people? According to conventional wisdom, the failure to pass the bill
could carry heavy political consequences for Republicans and Democrats, many of whom were eager to show they could act on a complex issue that has sparked deep public concern.
My reading of the response to this bill is that the only consequences are that Bush is bleeding support from his racist base. The reason the Dems are losing support is because they can't stop the war. I don't personally blame them for that, but I'm a small minority.
I didn't really want to see this from Senator Kennedy:
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., his party's lead negotiator on the bill, called the defeat ``enormously disappointing for Congress and for the country.'' But, he added: ``We will be back. This issue is not going away.''
I'm sorry Sen. Kennedy, do something about the war, do something about health care, we're not going to fix immigration until the Republicans stop using it as a wedge issue.
You know who cares about the immigration bill? Bush --
go give Josh Marshal a visit at Talking points memo and watch the YouTube excerpt from Bush's presser today. He's obviously a broken man, which pleases me, because I've been feeling like he is in that clip since 2000.
The Democratic Members of Congress must come to realize that it's the Republicans that don't compromise. If they can't be made to compromise, there is no reason to worry about bills like this. The Dems can make them look bad if they try. The only reason to bring the immigration bill up again is to drive a wedge between Bush and the remaining 28% of the population that still thinks they are Republican-Americans. It would make me happy to see his numbers hit 12%, which is my considered estimate of the number of certifiably insane people in this country.
The Dems need to hit back against anyone that paints this as a failure on this part. This is a failure on Bush's part. The Republican politicians that refuse to vote for it are listening to their constituents, who don't like the bill.
there needs to be a tag for high Broderismh, that's where the whole mistaken idea that the Dems need to solve this problem through compromise comes from.