The Occasional Observer

Fred Barnes from the Weekly Standard (the NeoCon joint that will become the second "W" cast forever into irrelevancy come 1/2009) has followed the President's lead in insuating that those who were opposed to Shamnesty reside on the political fringes. His most recent column is entitled, "Why the Center Did Not Hold."

My guess? Probably because there was no there there. There is no center on this issue. Poll after poll shows that a supermajority of Americans are opposed to amnesty. Every segment of the American political spectrum found something to oppose in this bill, from leftist union groups and minority leaders (save the La Raza types) to law-and-order conservatives and social conservatives. Sure, you have your handful of millionaire globalist libertarians who are actually profiting off the cheap labor (see the most recent American Conservative for a list of who they are and how they are direct friends of POTUS), and the occasional economics grad student who wants to argue that Americans are better off saving $.05/head of lettuce, even if it means decimiating the livelihood of their countrymen who grew up working in agriculture. But the reason the bill failed was the overwhelming (negative) grass roots (and blog!) reaction that our glorious leaders received when they attempted to ram through this legislation, legislation that only had the applause of a few loud backers who write large campaign checks (and the President).