Immigration - an issue like no other - in fact, you can trace Bush's recent free fall in the polls to his actually taking action on his insane guestworker idea. Where's the constituency for this program? The employers of illegal immigrant lobby? By the way, I have yet to find a single (unelected) Republican that supports the President's plan or the Senate so-called amnesty compromise. Heck, precious few Democrats support it either, but they like it because it has fractionized Republicans, although the only real fractionalization is between certain elected Republicans in the Senate, who support the compromise, and every single other Republican (other than the President), who are vehemently against it.
What are the political consequences of passage of the Senate bill? How about back to minority status for Republicans, as their base takes the only stand it can take, and stays home in November with the thought, "ignore me, will ya, serves 'em right!" The irony is that the House of Representatives did the right thing - it's the Senate Republicans, or some of them, that should be thrown out on their heels, along with - and it pains me to say this, President Bush.
In fact, the real villian in all this is the President, who has singlehandedly done what we would have thought was impossible as recently as a year ago - made Republicans so unattractive that we may see Democrats controlling all three houses of government by the end of 2008. And don't think for a second that Democrats will be the weasals that Republicans have been - they will get things done, and God help us.
Because, when you come right down to it, most of the problems that the Republicans have had in the last year or so can be laid at the feet of President Bush, who has made every mistake imaginable, and some that could never have been imagined. Immigration, which is seen by most Republicans as the most important issue facing America today, is the last straw for the President. In other words, we could have put up with failures everywhere else but this is simply too much. After all, with immigration you have security, culture, crime, taxes and just about everything else rolled into one.
So where does this leave us? With me it's ripping up my voter registration card and sending it to Ken Mehlman, with a note that I'll be going fishing on November election day, and by the way, I'm not stopping to vote. For my wife, it's making copies of the cancelled checks evidencing money she's sent to the Minutemen and to FAIR (the immigration lobby, not that other group), and saying to the Republicans, sorry nothing left for you.
And, oh yes, it's in the loss of the ready identification between conservative talk radio and the Republican party.
And you know, we really can't get over the feeling that we've been betrayed, and that there's really no where to turn. We really couldn't be more bitter about it....
Can't dispute any of that.
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