We Win, They Lose
06/08/2007
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Yesterday's second and most crucial cloture vote in the Senate to ramrod through the Kennedy-Bush amnesty bill not only failed to get the required 60 votes, it lost outright, 45-50! It's not quite dead, but it's comatose.

GOP Senators voted 7-38 against cloture, Democrats 38-12 for. Republicans voting for cloture (i.e., for the bill) were Graham, Hagel, Lugar, Martinez, McCain, Specter, and Voinovich.

Last year, an even worse bill passed the Senate 62-36. And since then, the Democrats took control of the Senate. So, we are making sizable progress in mobilizing public opinion.

Thank God for the Internet and talk radio. Back on Monday, the Washington Post tried to sleaze the Kennedy-Bush bill through by running a wholly biased frontpage article in order to whip up a false sense of momentum:

Backers of Immigration Bill More Optimistic Lawmakers Cite Sense of Urgency By Jonathan Weisman Washington Post June 4, 2007

After a week at home with their constituents, the Senate architects of a delicate immigration compromise are increasingly convinced that they will hold together this week to pass an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, with momentum building behind one unifying theme: Today's immigration system is too broken to go unaddressed.

Funny how they didn't cite any opponents of amnesty in the article agreeing with its contention ... That the public was telling the Senate that this bill would make the system worse was not for Washington to hear.

The Washington Post is beside itself that the public shot down its plan to push through an enormous amnesty bill concocted in Senator Kennedy's Red Bull-filled room without even holding hearings. Dan Balz, a Washington Post "reporter," spins madly:

But to those far removed from the backrooms of Capitol Hill, what happened will fuel cynicism toward a political system that appears incapable of finding ways to resolve the nation's big challenges.

If Washington cannot produce a solution to the glaring problem of immigration, they will ask, what hope is there for progress on health care, energy independence, or the financial challenges facing Medicare and Social Security? Iraq is another matter entirely.

Voters wanted an immigration deal, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) acknowledged as he pulled the measure after 9 last night: "The problem was on the inside of this Senate chamber."

Isn't it about time that the Washington Post fire their pollsters and hire somebody (e.g., Scott Rasmussen) who won't rig the questions to provide the answers the Establishment wants to hear?

The collective failure of the two parties already appears to have stimulated interest in a third-party candidate for president in 2008 whose main promise would be to make Washington work. It is far too early to assess the viability of such a candidate, but it is easy to imagine the immigration impasse finding its way into a television commercial if someone such as New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg decides to run.

Is there a better example of the reality distortion field that surrounds Washington than this? The public just punched through the bubble and told the crowned heads of Washington that they can't have their amnesty ... and this insider thinks that's a good omen for billionaire Bloomberg to run on a third party ticket on a pro-amnesty platform! Here's a way Bloomberg can simultaneously save a billion dollars in campaign spending and avoid humiliation: don't.

Now, having (apparently) dodged this bullet, we've got to actually accomplish something ...

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