For peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing

"Whisper tales of gore," indeed.

Ezra gets played

In another episode of "Who could've foreseen," Senator Huckleberry, who had previously said comprehensive immigration reform was too toxic to bring to the floor or the Senate earlier this year, announces he plans to bring an even more toxic bill to the Senate floor.

In April, I defended Lindsey Graham when he threatened to abandon climate change if Harry Reid moved on immigration first. Graham's tactic seemed extreme, but I understood his position. As one of the GOP's most prominent supporters of immigration reform, he would be unwittingly conscripted into a strategy that meant to split Republicans from Latinos and wouldn't end in a bill. In fact, Graham made a convincing case to me in a subsequent interview that engaging immigration this year would make a comprehensive bill less likely. "If you bring up immigration in this climate, you'll divide the country further," he said. "You'll get a huge vote for border security and interior enforcement, but when it comes to pathway to citizenship, you'll break down big-time."

How then to explain Graham's announcement -- on Fox News, no less -- that he's stepping into the immigration issue with a proposal that's much more divisive, and much more dangerous? “I may introduce a constitutional amendment that changes the rules if you have a child here," he said. "Birthright citizenship I think is a mistake. ... We should change our Constitution and say if you come here illegally and you have a child, that child's automatically not a citizen."

Immigration hissy fit

Believe it or not, like Marc Amber, I'm willing to cut Sen. Hucleberry a little slack on pulling the football away and backing away from his own energy legislation. Energy use reform is, in the grand scheme of things, a much more pressing issue than immigration reform. But it does strike one as a little odd than Graham would react so strongly. It's a given that he's a walking hissy-fit, but he was working on an immigration bill as well, and suggested late last year that immigration was a "priority."

It's clear that Reid sees immigration reform as a means of improving Hispanic turnout this November, something he'll desperately need if he's going to keep his seat. But that's not the only reason. Immigration reform is perilous, but the issue is much simpler to understand, most voters are already pretty set in their mind -- for everyone who supports the Arizona measure, there are many others who want to see some sort of combination of increased enforcement, path to citizenship, and a better means of documenting workers. That applies to both sides of the aisle. And it's a reality of daily life. Everyone can see the men hanging out in the parking lot, waiting for work. But everyone also knows an undocumented worker, living in fear while raising a family here and paying taxes.

And the AZ bill was a big espresso shot of immediacy in this debate, something Reid and the Democrats certainly didn't ask for.

Energy, on the other hand, is another big, complex legislative tangle. It would be subject to the same misinformation campaign that was the health care "debate." It's easy to turn it into a screaming match over "taxes" and "intrusion" and, of course, the Prius Mandate.

So, Graham may not like it, but it's the past and current behavior of his conservative colleagues that forced the political calculus on this.

UPDATE: Maybe, energy legislation isn't quite as dead as was thought.

Cactus league hatred

I've often thought about Madam Cura and I taking a trip to the Cactus League in Arizona for Spring Training. I hear the weather's better than Florida and so are the prices. Now, I doubt it, even after they strike down the law as un-Constitutional.

Where all our dreams go to die

I guess Rick Moran opposes the DREAM Act because he's eager to go fight in Iraq rather than let all those dark people do it for him in the hopes of becoming a citizen.