That Didn't Take Long

In this morning's Lewiston Morning Tribune and on my own blog, I opined that the just shelved immigration bill was loaded with exploding cigars that The New York Times couldn't wait to light. Well, they couldn't even wait for the bill to become law before striking the match.

As the link requires registration and those of you with weak stomachs probably can't bring yourselves to register on the NYT website, I've provided an excerpt here:

The immigration compromise collapsed on the floor of the Senate Thursday night. Many of its hard-line foes are celebrating, but their glee is vindictive and hollow. They have blocked one avenue to an immigration overhaul while offering nothing better, thwarting bipartisanship to satisfy their reflexive loathing for amnesty, which they define as anything that helps illegal immigrants get right with the law.

The tragedy is that the compromise bill was written to bring these restrictionists along, with punitive, detestable provisions that many supporters of comprehensive reform agreed to endorse for the sake of a “grand bargain.” The bill was badly flawed but fixable, as long as there was the possibility of leadership and courage in Congress.

But obstruction happened. Republican amendments, designed to shred the compromise, happened.

While implying rather crudely that the bill's defeat was motivated by racism, the Times conveniently neglects to that it was Democrats who brought the bill down.

First, Sen. Dorgan, a Democrat, knew full well that if his amendment won it would probably derail the "grand bargain." Republicans had said that it would. Yet he pressed ahead, aided and abetted by Majority Leader Reid who as the vote was being plotted "tapped Dorgan on the back" and said "excellent," according to Politico's Carrie Budoff. This suggest that Dorgan, and maybe Reid, preferred "no bill" to the bill as grandly bargained.

But of course, anyone who relies upon the New York Times as their primary source of news is willfully ignorant in the first place.