| Sunday, April 09, 2006 |
| Thus sayeth Rush Limbaugh |
I don't think I've ever said this before, and I will likely never say it again: Rush Limbaugh finally said something true.
On Friday, the fat, drugged one made the point on his radio show that the failure of the Senate "compromise breakthrough" bill on imimgration to pass in the Senate wasn't the fault of the Democrats and Harry Reid, as the current GOP talking points (including the president's Saturday radio address) suggest. In fact, the idea of a breakthrough on immigration reform was largely a fiction created by an enthusiastic media, which is prone to define anything supported by John McCain and Linsday Graham as both revolutionary, and good. The media rushed out behind Bill "both sides now" Frist, who himself was rushing to get on board whatever train he thought might be headed in the general direction of the Republican nomination for president in 2008 (which explaines why he used to be for his own bill modeled on the Sensenbrenner "borders only" plan in the House, but suddenly last week, became a born again McCain-Kennedy man). And when Frist announced that the Senate "leadership" had gotten behind a compromise crafted by two other media favorites - Chuck Hagel (whom I like as much as the media does, I just admit) and Mel "the go-to Hispanic legislative cable show guest" Martinez of Florida -- the media assumed that as go their faves, so goes the GOP.
But, as Limbaught pointed out, the McCain-centric press (See George Will's column today for your daily dose of McCain snark) forgot one thing: McCain isn't actually a leader of the Republican Party. And he isn't on the same side of the immigration issue as more base-sensitive Senators and Congressmen like John Kyl of Arizona, Peter King of New York, and Tom Tancredo of Colorado. Had the media interviewed Senator Kyl, for instance, they might have realized that the motion to hear possible amendments to the McCain-Kennedy legislation was opposed by a significant share of Republicans like Jeff Sessions of Alabama, and John Cornyn of Texas. The motion that failed on Friday would have allowed amendments largely aimed at stripping from the bill -- creatively named the "Securing America's Borders Act" anything that looked like amnesty -- even earned amnesty. And in the end, the GOP didn't hold its coalition, losing 20 Republicans in the final vote that was a crushing 36-62.
The bottom line is that it's the Republicans -- not the Democrats -- who are falling apart on this. And the media has got to stop following John McCain around and start paying attention to those Republicans who are hearing from, and speaking for, a much angrier base.
Also, I don't envy the GOP on this one. As I've said before, they can't win this debate. If something like McCain-Kennedy passes, they get slammed by their white, working class base. If it fails, they get nailed by Hispanics for doing a Prop 187 writ large. And McCain gets stuck with those pics of himself standing with Teddy Kennedy either way.
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Tags: immigration, Politics, border, MEXICO, McCain, illegal aliens, Illegal-Aliens, Illegal immigration, Mexico, Mexican flag |
posted by JReid @ 9:55 PM   |
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