What Just Happened?
Written by Mike on June 28th, 2007Bill Quick of the Daily Pundit explains what just happened:
In the end, the underdogs crushed the Bush Amnesty, and in the process, came of age as a true power player on the national political scene. Of course many contributed: Conservative think tanks generated reports and analysis, and the righty talkers mobilized their millions of listeners. But in the middle was something new: the Blogosphere, which reacted to every Bush attempt with speed and ferocity never seen before in American politics. The bill was subjected to a merciless spotlight within hours of its release, so merciless that it became impossible for Senators to follow their usual procedure and vote for it sight unseen.
Read the whole thing.
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You’re the underdogs? Um, no. Underdogs are weak and powerless.
Clearly it’s the immigrants who are the underdogs.
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Yeah, the underdogs . . . to quote Bill Quick:
“But this was the full power, majesty, and bribing, arm-twisting immensity of the entire Bush Administration, led by the Commander in Chimp himself, to orchestrate a carefully crafted attempt to ram through the Senate an amnesty/open borders bill for reasons known only to Bush himself. Not only that, he allied himself with the Democratic leadership of the Senate, and the crafty old fox, Teddy Kennedy, to grease the skids. And finally, he had the full support of the liberal mainstream media, and the entire panoply of liberal goo-goo organizations from CAIR to ACLU to the Academy-Think Tank complex going to the mat for him as well.”
If in fact we aren’t the underdogs, why was there such a fierce struggle over this? Why didn’t the Senate overwhelmingly crush the bill right away? Because they are so honest? Because the Democrats are such ethical people? Because they were interested in a fair debate?
Joe I can never tell if you aren’t informed or are trying to skimp on the facts.
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My two cents, the first vote was a straw dog and the switch was in all along. The idea behind letting the first vote go the way it did was to ease the whipping from leadership both democrat and republican, and spur grassroots lobbying to try and sway fence sitters. I have no proof of this but it seems to me that this was way too easy, and strong of a win not to be part of a grander strategy.
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And sometimes, Griffin, a blowout victory is just a blowout victory.
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The first vote saw the Democrats staying loyal to their leadership. The second vote, they couldn’t afford to do that anymore and had to vote the way their constituents back home where demanding. This won’t be the end of the immigration debate, but I would say for now, that President Bush won’t be signing any immigration legislation for the remainder of his time in office.
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What!!! Bill Quick just made comment on my post! I feel like I just had a brush with a celebrity.
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Haha, I’ll second Mike’s appreciation, Bill, and please come back by and grace us with your presence more often.
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My favorite quote from the article:
“The blogosphere is real. It has a sting. And that sting can be fatal to a politician’s hopes of staying in power or wielding power once in office.”
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This bill has been “killed” too many times before, and I expect that we will kill it again sometime in the near future. I only wish bush fought for social security reform with the same ferocity that he fought for amnesty.
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Not a chance, my dear Griffin. Bush would only push with similar ferocity for something that expanded government, like Medicare Part D or No Child Left Behind.