MOST AMERICANS FAVOR IMMIGRATION BILL-- REPUBLICAN SENATORS, AS USUAL, ARE OUT OF STEP

If you watch Lou Dobbs or listen to Hate Talk Radio you couldn't be blamed for getting the idea that no one favors comprehensive immigration reform other than Ted Kennedy, John McCain, George Bush, Harry Reid, officials with Hispanic last names, and a bunch of commies, hippies and people who want to reclaim Mexico's lost northern provinces. Certainly all the midgets running for the worthless Republican presidential nomination-- particularly the coy actor/lobbyist Fred Thompson and the opportunistic Mormon-- have figured out how to exploit it to run up their poll numbers with the dominant Know Nothing wing of the Republican Party, the wing that determines who the presidential nominee will be.

But wouldn't you know, a large majority of Americans favor the basics of the Senate legislation that was defeated last week. In fact, 65% of Republicans back it! In fact, the L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll shows that only 23% of adults opposes "allowing undocumented immigrants to gain legal status." Looks like Bush was right when he called the racists and xenophobes in his own party a bunch of worthless Know Nothings who should be ignored and "that the bill's opponents represent a vocal minority whereas most people are more welcoming toward illegal immigrants."

Reid delivered enough Democratic senators to pass the compromise bill and he says that to get it done Bush has to do his share of the heavy lifting and convince some of the GOP senators who are afraid of their own extremists to stop undermining it. Bush will never be able to deliver the hard core racists and hate-mongers like DeMint (R-SC), Bunning (KY), Corker (TN), and Sessions (R-AL) but even initial backers-- corporate types who love the cheap labor aspect-- like the cowardly Chamberpot (R-GA), Coleman (R-MN), Sununu (R-NH) and Craig (R-NH)-- have been scared away. Even the biggest pussy and asskisser in the whole Senate, Miss McConnell (R-KY), who normally asks "how high, big boy?" when Bush or Rove or Cheney tells him to jump, is not optimistic that Bush can get anything done in the Senate.

Bush tried yesterday by dragging his ass from the adulation in Albania to the contempt from Alabama. He's asking his GOP colleagues to package the bill in a way that will appeal to the yahoos, rednecks and Klan members who have been driving the debate inside the Republican Party grassroots. This week saw Bush's first trip to Albania ever and his first trip to the Senate since 2001.

Senator Mel Martinez of Florida, who is chairman of the Republican National Committee, said the new focus on security measures was intended as “a confidence-building measure” to shore up support among Republicans uneasy with the proposal rather than convert die-hard opponents.

“I don’t think he changed any minds, but I think he helped those who may be on the fence who may be still trying to make a decision,” Mr. Martinez said.

One mind, if you want to call it that, that will never be changed-- unless there's a lot of money in it for him-- is Alabama's neo-Confederate Jeff Sessions. You would have thought he was attacking Fort Sumter to hear the attack on Bush he launched on CNN. "He needs to back off... Frankly, I think this president is wrong to push this piece of legislation so hard after we've demonstrated the flaws that are in it."

With Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney championing the racists and bigots as a way to boost their own electoral chances, Bush is having a hard time tamping down the inflammatory rhetoric enough so that he can convince some of the bigger pussies in the party who normally rubber stamp everything he wants-- the Norm Colemans for example-- to vote his way on this. Even the biggest pussy in the entire Senate, Miss McConnell (R-KY)-- who normally just asks "How high, big boy?" when Bush or Rove or Cheney tells him to jump-- is pessimistic that Bush can do anything in the Senate on this. “I think most senators have pretty well made well made up their minds,” McConnell told reporters. “So, we’ll be interested in the president’s advice but I think this is not an issue upon which many people are undecided.”


UPDATE: YOU ALMOST FEEL SORRY FOR BUSH

Until you realize he and his party legitimized the racism and bigotry for their own purposes and now it's a bed they have to lie in. Take a peek at Tom Tancredo (R-CO) new TV ad:




UPDATE: IS BUSH REALLY WILLING TO DESTROY THE GOP OVER IMMIGRATION?

Although Howard Fineman's romantic and school girl vision of Bush's noblesse oblige towards Mexican workers is patently absurd-- Fineman need look no further than to cheap labor, the next best thing to the slavery that Bush would really like to champion-- his Rove's-eye view of why Bush is digging in his heals on immigration reform makes some sense.

His advisor, Carlo Rove, has explained that a system called “democracy” now gives peasants something called “the vote.” It would be shrewd, Rove said, for hacendados to grant their workers’ citizenship.

That’s the best explanation I have for why Bush is in the midst of what may be a suicide mission on immigration policy—embarrassing for him and ruinous for his party.

...As always, conservatives, who thrive on alienation, are spoiling for a fight. Now they have found it. Among the branch of conservatism fixed on “Us v Them” thinking, the enemy for decades was Communism. After the fall of The Wall, the “neocons” found a replacement Them in jihadist Islam. The old America-Firsters—what we used to call “isolationists,” who distrust foreign commitments—now have a homeland Them, in the form of 12-20 million illegal immigrants, most from Mexico.

The domestic neocons want a fence, a big and real one; they want illegals sent packing to the extent possible. Mostly they want leaders to express outrage and concern. And they aren’t a fringe; they form the core of the GOP. That is especially true in the South and parts of the Rustbelt, where the threat of being inundated by immigrants is less immediate, but the sense of estrangement from metropolitan, bi-coastal America great.