Tamar Jacoby's analysis is correct.
Oh, God! Pragmatism over soveriegnty. Some will stoop to the lowest levels of rhetoric to further "la Raza".
Her analysis is not correct because she is saying or implying that the victorious Democrats won because they supported 'comprehensive' reform, and that the vanquished Republican incumbents lost because they favored a tougher, enforcement-first approach.
That is complete nonsense. Its garbage. I know I'm repeating myself here, but it apparently needs to be done -- factors and issues other than immigration led to the GOP rout. The GOP didn't get its clock cleaned in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, New Hampshire, and New York because they refused to embrace Jacoby's far-left views on immigration. They lost because of Iraq, corruption scandals, particular state dynamics, and particulars of individual races and candidates. Its as though Jacoby wants us to forget that other issues were in play, and instead pretend the election was a referendum on comprehensive immigration reform versus enforcement-first.
The overall environment was poisonous for the GOP this year. Do you really think ANY Democrat challenger can attribute his or her victory in any significant way to support for 'comprehensive' reform?
And the Democrats did not make support for 'comprehensive' reform a part of their agenda. At most it was an afterthought, fleetingly mentioned after pounding away on Iraq, the culture of corruption, manufacturing job losses, the defecits, etc etc etc. Several Democrat winners explicity rejected the amnesty/comprehensive approach. And how often does the media allow a politician to get by with stating support for a 'guest worker' program w/o pressing them on the details? Can you recall an instance where a candidate was pressed and asked if they think the program should be comprised of actual guests -- i.e. people who will eventually go home -- or do they think the guests and their families should be granted permanent legal status and eventual citizenship?
Why did Pelosi and Reid not list passing immigration reform as one of their priorities after the election? Why did Pelosi leave it to President Bush to broach the subject?
And its really hard to take seriously any claim that the public wants 'comprehensive' reform when the champions of it and their media allies never bother informing the public of exactly what their reform entails. They never, for example, tell us how it would result in massive increases in permanent legal immigration. Its easy to garner public support for something when one is dishonest and misleading in describing and promoting that something.
Finally, and as I mentioned earlier, the media is fully on board with the 'comprehensive' reform approach. They are hoplessly biased on immigration. So the question I put to conservative supporters of unending mass immigration is this;
What does it feel like to have the mainstream media on your side for a a change? Does it feel good? Is it empowering? Is there a sense of validation? Or does it kind of make you feel dirty? Does it feel wrong somehow? Does the fact that the leftwing mainstream media is so fully on board with you on immigration make you at all doubt your position on this issue? Does it give you pause?