June 30, 2007
Bi-partisan hooey
As you may have surmised (if you've read any of my earlier posts), I am quite pleased that the Senate's Amnesty for Illegal Aliens was decisively rejected on Thursday morning, despite the best efforts of a small group of senators who did their best to ram the thing through -- and down our throats, too.
Advocates for immigrant's rights, i.e., those who aid and abet criminals in their ongoing violation of U.S. law, have taken to blaming "racist conservatives" for this defeat, calling it a rejection of what was a bi-partisan effort to solve the plight of the illegals "undocumented" workers.
Slate's Mickey Kaus notices something interesting about that "bi-partisan" mantra.
Amid all the talk about the need to transcend partisan politics in order to solve our nation's problems, it's easy to forget that the coalition opposing Bush's immigration solution contained (as emailer X notes) both:
progressive Democrats who believe tightening up the labor supply is the best way to improve the fortunes of the lower and middle classes and ... enforcement-first Republicans who are appalled to think that the border is not secure.
Bipartisanship! Indeed, the coalition opposing the bill was slightly more bipartisan than the coalition favoring the bill. In the crucial cloture vote, only 26% of the 46 Senators in the minority voting for the bill were Republicans, while fully 30% of the Senators in the majority voting against the bill were Democrats (or Vermont Socialists). It was Dems and GOPs reaching across party lines to find a bipartisan solution to the problem of a legacy-mad President's ill-considered immigration scheme! Somebody tell Michael Bloomberg. ...
The disconnect between the "Master of the Universe" (as Sen. Jeff Sessions dubbed the backroom cabal who brokered the secret Shamnesty deal) and the electorate was summed up by Sen. Jim DeMint, who asked his colleagues in the hours before the vote, "What part of 'No!' don't we understand?"
As it turned out, most of the pols got the message, sending the bill down in flames 46-53; it couldn't even muster a simple majority, negating the catcalls that it deserved an up-or-down vote.
Posted by Mike Lief at June 30, 2007 10:55 AM
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