That makes no sense to me. I mean the hacks tried to pass their immigration bill two weeks ago. The backlash from voters then nearly drove the Senate out of Washington. Any senator who hopes to get reelected, if he or she is sane, ought to see the attempted resurrection of the dead immigration horse as a thoroughly rotten idea. So why are they going to try again?

 

For his effort to push the immigration bill, George Bush forfeited a fair-sized chunk of what little support he formerly retained. Right-wing pundits and talk-radio hate merchants got all over the president like ugly on an ape. Columnist and conservative icon Peggy Noonan went so far as to brand Bush a fool and a wastrel, and she ended by calling for other conservatives to dump what’s left of the Bush presidency in the nearest ditch. So why would cow-Boy George stick his head into that hornets’ nest again?

 

Some writers claim the Senate bill grants amnesty to roughly 12 million illegal aliens who already live and work in the U.S. It is said that Democrats push the legislation because immigrants nearly all vote Democrat in national elections and those 12 million new votes promise Democrats a veto-proof majority in both houses of the next Congress.

 

If that’s true, it could explain why Democrats want the legislation. But it makes absolutely no sense as an explanation of why Bush and his Republicans would help Democrats do such a thing. Nor does it explain why Democrats would ask George Bush for help, because any piece of legislation that Bush endorses these days is bound to be wildly unpopular.

 

Of late it is trendy among pundits to say of Bush that “the emperor has no clothes.” In fact, the juices in which George Bush now stews are much more toxic than the cliché implies. For it isn’t just that Bush stands naked before the American people; it is rather that Bush is naked and has no legs to stand on. Bush has lied to the American people and been wrong so often about so much that America no longer trusts him at all. If Bush was a cop, Americans would give him a rubber gun with rubber bullets and a childproof safety, and then cuff his hands to the nearest lamp-post. By and large, Americans think the best thing – the only thing – this Congress can do with this president is impeach the felonious twerp. Ask Bush to support legislation, you ask him to bestow the kiss of death upon it.

 

So why would Democrats ask Bush for help? My guess is that they didn’t ask. My guess is there was a quid pro quo: Democrats pledged untrammeled funding for the war in Iraq; Bush pledged GOP support for the Democrats’ immigration package. If Bush can't or won't now deliver his end of the deal, Democrats may at long last decide to impeach him.

 

You can call that blackmail. You can call it whatever you like. Curse me for a damned cynic. I don’t care. But if you’ve got a better explanation for what’s going on, I’d really like to hear it. None of the people who are close to the thing now talk the least bit of sense.

 

The end of it all is that I’ve got some good advice for anyone who really wants to pass this so-called immigration reform bill: Put the thing in a box, wrap it up tightly, and FedEx the package to R & J Partnership LLC, N5505 Crossman Road, Lake Mills, WI 53551. Folks out there will know how to process your legislation. They'll turn it into something that has a little more market appeal than the stuff you’re presently trying to sell, and they’ll do the deed, I’m sure, for a lot less money than you’d have to pay those hifalutin K-Street lobbyists.