Can You Stand Another Round of Immigration Debate?

I don't know if I can survive another round of the immigration "debate" -- it's a stretch to even use the word. But it looks like we're heading there after the Senate voted to move on to a raft of amendments to the "compromise" measure that was buried, temporarily as it turns out, two weeks ago.

Interestingly, five Dems who had originally voted for cloture voted against it this time, and seventeen Republicans crossed over under pressure from the White House, even though their base is absolutely frothing at the mouth over the bill. As Oliver Willis put it, "I am amazed by how the right just spits in the face of their base - the combined effort of talk radio, rightie blogs, and more leads to zip."

Meanwhile, on the left I'm hearing that maybe we should just wait until 2009 for a better environment in which we might pass a good and comprehensive immigration reform. I think we're likely to end up with little choice in the matter. There were provisions in the draft released last month that were simply unacceptable for progressives to get behind, and now the bill is going to become even more punative and less logical as the leadership makes a vain attempt to bring the hardliners on board. That's certainly no cause for celebration.