The Daily Background

NYT has the latest on the immigration debate in the Senate. To make a long article short (it’s not really even that long), they’ve just voted on an amendment which would bar undocumented workers who are convicted felons (or have three misdemeanors) from the country. Not big news. The idea is that conservative Republicans are trying to chip away at the Senate bill, in order to fit it closer to the extremist House one.

House conservatives said they saw little chance to reconcile the emerging Senate legislation and the House bill.

“The emphasis that he placed on the amnesty provision will not fly, especially in the House,” said Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado, who is one of the leaders of efforts to stop illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America. Mr. Tancredo and other Republicans said their party was already facing a difficult midterm election. They said the party would suffer if the president successfully advanced his proposal, which they said diverged with public opinion and carried the risk of alienating much of the Republican base.

“It is a nonstarter with the American people, and the Republican Party will pay the price at the polls,” said Representative Dana Rohrabacher, Republican of California.

Mr. Rohrabacher said that some fellow conservatives had found the president’s address condescending and that the remarks “hinted at maliciousness on the part of those who are adamant that illegal immigration is bad for the country.”

In addition, AP has an article which covers more Republican infighting. Plus, the the Washington Post has a hard hitting editorial today, regarding the President and the National Guard:

President Bush’s misuse of the National Guard seems to have no bounds. Over the past several years he has stretched the force to the limit with repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, a policy that has imposed severe hardship on Guard families across the country and reduced the availability and readiness of units to handle disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. The returning forces are often stripped of equipment; more than 64,000 vehicles and other pieces of equipment were left behind in Iraq. Though the Guard has supplied a third or more of the manpower in Iraq, and no end to the war on terrorism is in sight, the administration proposed this year that its numbers be permanently reduced — a loopy idea that all 50 state governors opposed.

Now Mr. Bush has topped even this record of mismanagement. His order deploying Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexican border does more than add another mission for a force that already is overtaxed. It also turns the National Guard into a political tool: The only coherent reasons for this operation have to do with satisfying Mr. Bush’s restive conservative base or winning votes for an immigration reform measure in Congress.

Ouch. Thank god the transparency of the President’s latest PR stunt is shining through to people outside the blogosphere.

Filed under: Immigration, Z-TDB Blog