After the amnesty passes, Bush needs to propose a massive increase in legal immigration levels, so that there'll be less need for a 2027 amnesty a la 86 and 07.

There will be as well the bonus of the Dobbsian roaches, Right and Left, having a light shined on them -- so that they'll no longer be able to hide behind the notion that their opposition was about legality/illegality and "security".

The voting down the amendment restricted/refused allowing felons in the country was a bit frightening.

Talk about being an open nation all you want, and I'll agree with you.

Let in known scum, and something about the entire bill is awry.

1. No bill will come out of Congress for the duration of the 110th Congress. The political campaign calendar does not allow for it.
2. Hillary will be elected President, getting a little more than 300 electoral votes. She will be the only one with enough media/corporate support to break through a general lack of interest in all candidates.
3. The GOP will lose two Senate seats (not too sure where, as this particular Senate cycle is run in the GOP’s own Southern/Great Plains backyard). The GOP will also GAIN some House seats, but not enough to take control of the body.
4. The 111th Congress and Hillary will NOT be able to pass a “comprehensive reform package,” thus killing dead any idea for such a package for up to a generation.

I think this way because I’m firmly convinced that the reaction from the GOP “base” is akin to a business plan in the first stages of execution. The ultimate goal of the business plan is to continually own the Immigration issue in perpetuity. Stalling in ‘07, LOSING in ‘08, and being a major PITA to Hillary are all part of the business plan.

The business plan’s first stages of execution have succeeded, despite noises about bringing the bill back.

To wit, those who continually fail to heed the lessons of Clinton about OWNING the issue rather than "solving" the problem will not see any regularized amnesty. Known anchor-baby Michelle Malkin understands this like the back of her hand. So does illegal-hirer Tom Tancredo.

All you have to do is convince the opponents that they own the bill and it passes easily. That's how Reagan did it.

Weisel, Solzhenitsyn, Sharansky, etc, probably disagree that we should bow down to foreign legal authority.

The nativists always require the fiction that the next wave will be different. The best policy is no numerical limit, the most politic is periodic amnesty.

Since the yahoo right and the Beltway/NYC right won't compromise, is not the easier way to go Left? This bill was designed to attract 35 Dems and 25 GOPers. Next time, 45 Dems and 15 GOPers would get it passed. President Bush wil sign anything that doesn't add Mexico to the USA's name. Or am I missing something?

All I know is that whatever happens, OJ will have predicted it perfectly and it will seamlessly align with his master narrative. If only he could work our friends, the Shia, into the picture!!

OJ, owning the issue and owning the bill are two totally different things. When you own the issue, you control debate/talking points on the issue. You have no such flexibility when you own the bill, as your only recourse is to get it passed in final form.

Speaking of the Reagan amnesty, wouldn't it be a kick in the pants if the Senate author of that bill, Alan Simpson, gets appointed to fill out Craig Thomas' term?

Bob, the real kicker in all this is Tom Tancredo has no qualms about going to Maxine Waters and John Conyers to kill this in the House. Thinking of this in terms of Left/Right is a nonstarter, as anyone who followed the FastTrack trade authority issue during the Clinton years will tell you.

We should, of course, have limits on immigration based on ideology and morality

Which, of course, totally contradicts the position you take towards illegals: that they're all wonderful and anyone who objects is a racist.

The average American wants the process of immigration to have some restrictions, so that every gang member, smuggler, felon, and TB-carrier in Mexico just can't walk in. And we want to be able to deport such people when we find them, instead of having idiotic "sanctuary" policies that protect illegal criminals at the expense of the rest of us. So build the fence, deport more of the undesirables, streamline legal immigration so that we can take more of the good sort, and then we can talk about amnesty for the rest. Amnesty without border control is just an invitation to the next 20 million illegals, whose morality is obviously unknown.

Your hygiene concerns are merely a manifestation of psychoses, but we should indeed regularize immigration so that the 100 million who are coming can be checked out for political/religious deviance. (Though, of course, for libertarians the Christianity of the millions is the deviance.)

You lot won't allow such liberal reform so we use periodic amnesty instead. Fortunately there are too few undesirables to matter. It works about as well as any system should be expected to.

But it's easy enough to fool legislators when it comes to ownership of laws. After all, it was only after it was too late the smart party realized they'd handed W the school vouchers, HSAs and the like that was the point of the bills they thought they were winning on. The stupid party is that much easier to dupe.

When it all hits the fan in Pakistan its Shi'a will be coming here, not to Iran.

But OJ, that was a case of W playing ball on the Smart Party's own turf and signaling he wanted to make a deal. That can be called triangulation or rope-a-dope, take your pick.

You can't do rope-a-dope on your own Stupid Party. Bill Clinton found that out with FastTrack. And it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue from someone (W) who has been blessed with otherwise excellent political skills and people.

"None of the amendments will matter. Tney won't be enforced anyway"

Exactly why everyone is against this bill. Immigration was reformed in the 1960s and again in the 1980s - no one believes this will solve anything. Bush is trying to play this down the middle but with 40 yrs of govt incompetence he doesn't have any credibility. Only last year a fence was overwhelmingly approved and supposed to be built - a year later is has harldy started.

OJ seems to feel amnesty is fine because the Hispanic are all of the sudden going to voter overwhelmingly GOP. There is absolutely no evidence of this.

Bush's political instincts have gone sour since the 2006 election or he is desperately seeking some legacy no matter what happens to the GOP. Trying to get a bill passed that polls show overwhelming opposition to is a bad idea - even Reid understands this.

No, justice requires amnesty. That they're social conservatives is a bonus. If they stay Democrat they'll just keep moving that party Right.

The politics don't matter. Bush couldn't not do this and remain a good Christian.

Why not? The congressional GOP is the foe here. Rope a dope works against any opponent.