Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

Bill, I'll post a comment here tonight quoting something Mark Krikorian wrote recently for the Los Angeles Times about the current goings-on in Congress in regard to immigration legislation.

In a recent online debate sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, wrote a number of interesting things. I know Mark won't mind if I quote him at length here, and I'm sure I don't care what the lying, fiction-writing Los Angeles Times thinks about it or anything else.

Included in Krikorian's Feb. 23 entry, "Giving the people what they want," is this:

"... President Bush's 'comprehensive' amnesty-guestworker extravaganza, that Sen. Kennedy may introduce as early as next week, is not going to become law this year. It may well be approved in some form by the Senate, though even that is not a sure thing.

But it will stumble again in the House of Representatives, just as it did last year, and for the same reason -- the public hates it.

The Center for Immigration Studies' polls -- and, frankly, common sense -- show that the public overwhelmingly supports consistent enforcement to reduce the illegal population through self-deportation, rather than the Bush-McCain-Kennedy approach of letting the illegals stay and further increasing immigration....

And anyway, if the 'comprehensive' approach -- legalization, increased legal immigration, and promises of future enforcement -- were so popular, how come no one ran on it in last November's congressional elections? Even those lawmakers who support an amnesty said little to nothing about it, focusing instead on their support for tougher border security. No evidence could demonstrate more clearly that the 'comprehensive' approach is an elite-driven policy, which ordinary voters -- Republican and Democrat -- dislike.

Heck, even the Senate Republican sponsors of the bill are wary of the people's wrath. The word on Capitol Hill is that McCain has pulled his name off the new version of the bill (though he still supports it), while Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback said yesterday that he could not support the bill, even though he was an original co-sponsor of it last year!...

... Democratic amnesty supporters in the House are insisting that they will not proceed without lots of Republican support to provide political cover (the president's signature on the bill wouldn't provide much political cover, since he has little credibility left ...). One Democratic amnesty supporter has said his party needs 50 to 60 Republican votes to provide cover, while Rep. Rahm Emanuel, architect of the Democratic victory in the House, is insisting they will not proceed unless they're assured of 85 to 90 Republican votes.

When you consider that only 17 Republicans voted against last year's attrition-through-enforcement bill, it's pretty clear that the Democratic leadership is intentionally setting an unattainably high threshold of Republican support to provide an excuse when their pro-amnesty constituency groups complain about the lack of movement on the amnesty...."

Go to the aforementioned link and read the rest.