“For a seasoned politician, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is unusually transparent. Politicians, as a rule, try to mask their political motives -- but upon yanking the bipartisan immigration reform bill from the Senate floor last Thursday, Mr. Reid declared its demise to be the fault of President Bush. He said the headline would be: Democrats voted for the bill, Republicans didn't, and ‘the president fails again.’”Today Jonathan Weisman and Michael Abramowitz in the Washington Post write a story called, “Bush, Senators to Meet on Immigration” in which they state:
“Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) continued yesterday to urge Bush to deepen his involvement in the fight for the legislation. Reid sent a letter to the White House saying that ‘it will take stronger leadership by you to ensure that opponents of the bill do not block the path to final passage.’”While in today’s Washington Times, Stephen Dinan writes “Reid presses Bush over GOP votes.” Dinan writes:
“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told Mr. Bush that the only hope for the bill is if he delivers the votes of more than 20 Republican senators to break a filibuster and pass the measure. The Nevada Democrat had a frank assessment of the bill's prospects, saying the 51-member Democratic caucus was ‘about maxed out’ at the 38 votes they delivered on a test vote on the bill last week 22 short of breaking a filibuster. They were joined by just seven Republicans one-third of the number Mr. Reid says the president must deliver. ‘It's the president's bill,’ Mr. Reid said, adding that if Democrats are being counted on to supply the additional votes, ‘it won't happen.’”Both of these stories mirror Barnes piece yesterday and it definitely appears that the Democrats are the shrewder of the two parties in the immigration debate. Democrats already back the granting of amnesty to the 12 million illegals in this country all in the name of Democratic votes. It also appears that Mr. Reid has realized that many of the Republican’s are also signing onto the bill with, in my opinion, the misguided hopes that it will also generate members for the party. If this bill is truly the brainchild of President Bush and it’s not unlikely that it isn’t, his position on immigration has changed little over the years: how could his advisers “allow” him to present it to a Congress that is only intent upon his demise?
With Mr. Reid’s statement, “It’s the President’s bill”, with the obvious implications that if it fails the President fails, it’s blatantly clear that Mr. Reid can’t help but be transparent in this matter, he obviously wants the President to fail, and he wants 12 million more Democratic voters on the rolls, paying taxes for more welfare programs. What is unclear is, with such a hostile Congress, and with such a volatile topic, why would the White House send this bill to Congress when we are fighting a war that the Democrats already oppose and are looking for any reason to make the President look bad and undermine the war effort. This bill is now one more attempt to make the President look bad and the Republican’s are now unwitting pawns in the game, Mr. Reid knows it and so should the President, how long is it going to take before he realizes that it is not his base that is abandoning him, it is he that has abandoned his base and the best thing to do will be to scrap the plan and start over…later.
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