Besides the bill itself, which I think is unworkable and unusable as written - except by illegals who will be able to game the system with near impunity is the real, palpable disdain with which several Senators seem to regard their constituents.
A post by Stanley Kurtz on National Review's "The Corner" blog:
Pants Down [Stanley Kurtz]Here’s something new. The first true Internet-Age presidential campaign was in 2004. The first major Internet-Age Supreme Court nomination was Harriet Miers, in 2005. Now, in 2007, we’ve got what is arguably the first truly major down-and-dirty Roberts-rules-of-disorder parliamentary battle fought under the searchlight of the blogs.
The Internet was critical to the immigration bill’s first failure. If not for the blogs, the bill’s deceits and flaws would not have been so well or quickly exposed, and "comprehensive reform" would probably otherwise have passed within a couple of days. Now we’re at yet another new level. The public is being exposed to a basket of legislative tricks–of a sort that are rare in any case, and surely of a kind that have never been subjected to mass and rapid-fire public exposure. The undemocratic character of all that is happening here is being conveyed to the public in short order and with clarity–often through the medium of Senate aides themselves.
Do the Senators now called "Masters of the Universe" understand this? Presumably, senate aides, who certainly read the blogs, have communicated to their senators how dangerous it is to be exposed in this fashion. But maybe some senators still don’t get it. They seem to think they can get away with backroom maneuvers in an era when blogs are serving as virtual fly-on-the-wall cloakroom cameras.
Earlier today, in "Off the Table," I argued that passing this bill is not going to make the immigration issue go away. On the contrary, the blogs-eye-view we’re getting of all this sausage making is going to be frozen in the public memory for a very long time. It’s going to inspire new campaigns, and it’s going to haunt the Masters of the Universe–and the Amnesty 8, too. I still don’t think they quite realize this. In fact, the Masters’ false belief that quickly passing this bill is going to somehow get this issue off of their backs is the method behind this their deceptive madness. They don’t seem to realize that they’ve already been caught with their pants down.
The influence of the blogs (no, not mine, in this fight or context) is growing, and defining their niche in the news business. And doing so strongly, by their nature not having many of the time and content constraints that broadcasters/cable news operations have, nor the structural issues that print media has.
What's happening in the Senate is nothing short of disgraceful, as the ugly workings of ramming through unpopular legislation in an arguably un-democratic fashion is laid bare - and it's being done in a high-handed, bi-partisan display of stunning oligarchic arrogance.
I had this discussion in May, with Nancy Boyda, my Rep in Congress. How the Internet (re: the blogs and the way they feed the news-cycle - and feed off of it) are going to change the way politicians do business. That the old paradigm most of these Senators were used to just wasn't workable anymore.
You're seeing it in action now.
Boyda, being at the beginning of her career, has a unique opportunity - to build a new way of doing business-as-usual. By recognizing that you can't be "all things to all people" because we feeders-of-the Internet just aren't going to allow it. Pols are going to have to keep track of their positions, and changes to them. The key thing is the follow-up to explain *why* they changed. So, of course, as with McCain-Feingold, their instincts are to regulate criticism out of the picture...
Flip-flopping sticks as an accusation when you can't or won't explain the change.
If you can/will explain the change (and have been consistent) - then it's grown-up behavior, right?
Not that loons on the extremes of either side will *ever* be satisfied, therefore, don't bother trying to satisfy them, really. You're never going to make them happy without rigid, lockstep obedience to doctrinaire positions.
But the key pieces in the blurb from The Corner is what dominates local water-cooler talk, and the disgust is bi-partisan in regard to the bill and the Senators from both parties trying to ram it through who are clearly disgusted with having to take into account popular will.
Most people understand a need for reform in the system - and most people don't see this bill as the venue for it - and are appalled at the way the political class is behaving, and that's regardless of party affiliations - it's a huge swell of "a pox on all your houses."
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