Politics Blog

Reader Dan:

If George Bush had half a brain, tomorrow he would fly to the border, fly to where the border fence is being constructed, pick up a shovel, and start digging a hole for the pilings needed for the fence.

Let the image of him digging a hole for the fence be broadcast.

Let the image of him DIRECTLY overseeing the rapid construction of the fence be broadcast.

Let the image of him MAKING REAL his many utterances about border security be broadcast.

Let the fence be completed.

Let additional manpower by the tens of thousands be retained.

Let the invasion be stopped.

Then, and only then might the American people be in a mood to hear anyone in this administration speak about the problem of illegal immigration.

But Rove and his henchmen are blockheads. Snow spins instead of being a conviction conservative.

And throughout the entire White House staff, NO IMAGINATION is to be found.

Given that the amnesty bill is now dead, probably until at least 2009, where does that leave us conservatives? A few observations:

• Sam Brownback is a big time political coward.
• Red State’s Leon Wolf would defend just about any elected Republican for just about anything.
• John McCain has slipped into political irrelevancy for a cause that not only was not worthy, but suffered a resounding political defeat. I find this sad in a way as he does have instructive things to say regarding the GWOT. I can’t imagine he’s going to run for his Senate seat again.
• John Kyl damaged his conservative credentials to a very high degree. Maybe this is repairable and maybe it is not.
• Lindsey Graham may as well caucus with the Democrats or Lieberman and Sanders for all I care. Anyone supporting this clown when he runs again is a Leon Wolf clone.
• The Senate would be a better place without Trent Lott.
• Harry Reid got outmaneuvered by members of his own party on the clay pigeon.

Finally, I’m left wondering why the political class almost did this to the country? Were there sinister forces at work, or was this a moral crusade?

Feel free to post your observations on the amnesty aftermath.

Mickey Kaus:

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!

Yesterday, I noted DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff’s griping, and said that he should just enforce the law. Today an NRO Editorial lays out specifics of what he could do:

As divisive as this debate has been, it did reveal a consensus on the need to enforce current laws. The president should accept that consensus and act on it. If necessary, he should request additional authority and resources for the purpose.

Under current law, the border can be secured and the administration can crack down on scofflaw employers. Contractors can be required to enroll in the government’s employee-verification system as a condition of doing business with the federal government. The Social Security Administration identifies tens of thousands of W-2 forms with false or stolen Social Security numbers. The IRS can fine employers who file a significant number of such forms.

In arguing for the comprehensive reform, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff said that his department needed data from the Social Security Administration to enforce the law on employers. There never was any need to hold that simple reform hostage to amnesty, and the president should ask Congress to enact it now. He should also clarify that state and local law-enforcement agencies have the constitutional authority to make arrests for violations of federal immigration laws.

Byron York, on how a victory turned into a rout:

It seemed clear that a few senators were going to switch to “no.” But there was no guarantee there would be five. And no expectation of more than five.

And even if there were five, there were worries that Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had something up his sleeve and might persuade a few Democrats who had voted against the bill on Tuesday to vote differently this time, keeping it alive.

Either way, it was going to be close, close, close.

And then it turned out to be a rout, with the bill’s supporters falling 14 senators short of a vote to move forward.
Why? Chalk it up to the old “profiles in courage” effect.

For a while, when it appeared that the bill had a chance of staying alive, its most timid supporters stayed on board — but only on the condition that everybody else stayed on board, too.

Then, yesterday morning, word went ’round that the required five senators had changed their minds. The immigration bill appeared headed for defeat. That’s when a squeaker became a stampede.

What were the senators thinking? Well, everybody knew that if the bill died, it would stay dead, probably for a long time. That would mean their vote on cloture would stand, certainly up until next year’s elections, as their final position on the “amnesty” bill.

“It was one of those things where people were prepared to vote for it — if it was going to pass,” says a plugged-in Senate source. “But they didn’t want to fall on their swords for a failed bill, and on the last vote on this issue for a long time.”

So the coalition that everyone described as “fragile” fell completely apart.

Right near the Senate floor!

Day laborers from the Washington area gathered in the Senate to wait for the results of the immigration cloture vote.

The shameless dishonesty of the open borders fanatics is appalling. By the way, note the visitor passes these illegals are wearing. Those were given out by some Senator’s office.

Article here.

The Ross Report
by Richard Ross of Conservatives with Attitude!

From a senior Metropolitan London police official:

The impression we’re getting is that it was probably a ‘left-field job’ involving people who don’t tie in directly to prior intelligence. In other words, so far, there is no indication of involvement of people previously identified in other terrorism investigations. It’s still early and it may turn out to be someone who’s been monitored.

The working assumption is that - not that these are amateurs- because this is not an amateur bomb design - but they’re slightly ‘freelance’, still part of the same picture. They’re not in touch with al Qaeda but doing this for the same ideological reasons. However, I have to say this is entirely supposition at this point. There are some differences between this and typical al Qaeda plots, in that just about every al Qaeda incident has involved multiple explosions.

As far as we know, this was an isolated vehicle. So far, it doesn’t look like an attempted suicide bombing, but a car bomb the driver was intending to detonate remotely.

We don’t know the identity yet of driver. Investigators are going through the closed circuit material now, but hadn’t when I got my briefing. The car bomb technique has been used in Iraq, but it’s also similar to techniques talked about in previous trials here in the UK [i.e. Dhiren Barot]. Barot - a convert to Islam - was sentenced to life imprisonment in the UK last year, convicted of plotting to fill limousines with gas cannisters, petrol and shrapnel and park them outside nightclubs. He had an earlier plan, which he abandoned, to attack five financial landmarks in the United States: the New York Stock Exchange, the IMF, the World Bank, the Prudential Building in Newark, and the Citigroup tower in NYC.

They talked about vehicles filled with gas canisters. … Scotland Yard is not formally confirming the contents of the Mercedes in this case, but as far as I know it was filled with canisters of what we call camping gas [propane]. There was also loose petrol inside the car, petrol poured around car and petrol in canisters, as well as loose [camping] gas and the [camping] gas in canisters.

Definitely enough to have caused a big bang. This is a busy area that time of night. There could have been a fireball that could have penetrated the club, and with the nails, it could have caused serious casualties…. Investigators obviously are following up on the car. They will check the vehicle identification number, but you never know, those can be falsified. So it may take some time to trace it.”

Remember “I’ll see you at the bill signing"?

Click Comments and discuss.

Meet Senator Switchback, who spectacularly killed his presidential campaign on live national TV today.

UPDATE: Rich Lowry:

When I was e-mailing with a Senate source opposed to this bill going through potential votes last night, he said something like, “I hope Brownback just doesn’t show up,” given how unreliable he was on this vote. I bet Brownback now wishes the same thing.

Betsy Newmark:

Anamendment introduced by Mike Pence passed 309-115 to bar the FCC from imposing the Fairness Doctrine.

Some people have said that this was just a fake issue trumped up by talk radio hosts to scare their listeners. Perhaps, but when you have several powerful senators talking about how they want to bring back the Fairness Doctrine and Representatives also talking about it, it seems more than just blowhard paranoia.

All in all, this has been a very good day for conservatives from the death of the immigration bill, defeated by a bipartisan majority to the Supreme Court decision on barring the use of race in school assignments. And the Pence amendment is just icing on the cake. We conservatives need to savor today because we don’t get many days like this.