June 11, 2007
SOMEONE HAS TO ROLL THE HORSE:
Immigration deal called 'alive and well': Supporters, including Bush, hope to get the faltering compromise bill back on the Senate floor this week. (Peter Spiegel, June 11, 2007, LA Times)
The White House is poised to begin a last-ditch effort this week to resurrect the compromise immigration bill that was pulled off the Senate floor Thursday, with administration officials insisting another two days of debate could ensure passage of the contentious legislation.Calling the measure "alive and well," the administration blamed the Democratic Senate leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, for prematurely abandoning efforts to get the bill passed, and said President Bush would go to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to lobby for the legislation.
"Rather than doing finger-pointing, if Harry Reid is committed to this — and this is an historic bill dealing with a problem that a lot of people think has to be solved, and it's got to be solved in a smart way — why not go ahead and set aside those two days for debate?" White House spokesman Tony Snow said on "Fox News Sunday." "I think you're going to find the Republicans and Democrats are willing to do it."
Reid decided to end the Senate's consideration of the bill Thursday evening after a vote to cut off debate failed by 15 votes. [...]
The White House's stance puts Bush in an unusual position, joining Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the Senate's most prominent liberal and one of the compromise's leading backers, in pressuring Reid to give the Senate more time for considering the bill.
When has W ever been reluctant to use Ted Kennedy to get what he wants? Posted by Orrin Judd at June 11, 2007 7:20 AM
Bush's tenacity is normally a strong trait. Here it is leading him to cuddle up with Ted K to come up with an immigration bill that 75% of the American people have said they don't want. One of the hits on Clinton was the loss in Senate/House/local seats during his tenure - Bush pushing this bill will lead to the same for him and the GOP come '08.
Posted by: AWW at June 11, 2007 10:50 AMHe's president, not a precinct captain. If the GOP chooses to blow itself up over nativism, good riddance. President Clinton and Ted Kennedy will pass the amnesty and give us 100 million new citizens. Republicans spent 70 years in the wilderness after their last nativist spasm.
Posted by: oj at June 11, 2007 12:13 PMGot that right OJ. This whole issue makes my head hurt. The only racists I know are Democrats; how do they keep getting the Republicans to attack this tar baby? I know a dozen or more Republicans who are screaming about "controlling the borders" and "They broke the Law" who work with Mexicans and treat them like equals, unlike the Democrats who treat them like a servant class, to do the dirty work in the background, ignored and unseen. When I call them on it, they'll say "Oh, he doesn't count. He's not like the others.". Republicans seem to be racist only to people they haven't met, and Democrats only treat strangers with respect. How did we get here?
Posted by: Robert Mitchell Jr. at June 11, 2007 1:05 PMRobert,
We got here because the Right Wing, in its most recent form, has owned the Immigration issue since CA "passed" Prop 187 in 1994. Those folks only want a "solution" on THEIR terms/conditions, and on their timetable.
W, like most presidents not named Bill Clinton, wants to resolve this issue for the forseeable future. His problem was that he ran into a Right that learned a valuable lesson from Clinton about owning an issue without necessarily having to come up with a "comprehensive solution."
And as Bill Clinton learned from FastTrack trade authority, W cannot rope-a-dope or triangulate his own people.
Posted by: Brad S at June 11, 2007 2:22 PM"He's president, not a precinct captain." Nor is he a conservative Republican, more like one of the Rockefeller variety.
Posted by: Ed Bush at June 11, 2007 3:26 PMReagan was the most popular Republican of the 20th century and he passed the biggest amnesty in US history. Wilson ran a nativist campaign and switched CA from a red state to a blue.
Posted by: oj at June 11, 2007 4:17 PMThere's an old saying: conservatives hate people in the abstract and love them in the particular. Liberals love people in the abstract but hate them in the particular. That's an inevitable function of the belief in the Fall for the Right and the selfishness of the Left.
Posted by: oj at June 11, 2007 4:20 PMNo, of the Reagan variety. The Right hated his presidency too.
The divergence is between Christians and the rest of the Right.
The Rockefeller Foundation is eugenicist--he'd have been with the Darwinists
If the GOP chooses to blow itself up over nativism, good riddance
My sentiments exactly.
Posted by: Jim in Chicago at June 11, 2007 7:05 PM