It would also be a good idea to consider the argument that the reasons for going into Iraq were good ones. There were no lies, unless you include the Big Lie that has been told for so long, now, that even Bush’s biggest supporters appear to have swallowed it. There were, in fact, probably masses of WMD in Iraq before Bush was persuaded (by that faux hero of Desert Storm and subsequent betrayor of Iraqi Shiite rebels) to go through the months-long charade at the UN, and they were at least arguably removed during the time that charade purchased for Saddam. There were documented operational and strategic contacts between Saddam and al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. Thomas Joscelyn and Steven Emerson have documented many of them. There were doubtless others. Doesn’t anyone else recall Salman Pak? Does Abu Nidal ring a bell here?

I agree that Bush has made a hash out of many things. I’ve been persuaded for some time now that “somewhere in Texas, a village is missing its idiot.” We can only thank God that Alberto Gonzales was never appointed to the Supreme Court. Bush lost me with NCLB and Campaign Finance Reform, which were both total abdications of his responsibility, the latter of his Constitutional responsibility. We need not forgive that to recognize that the alternatives to him in 2 elections were unacceptable. But the only problem I have with his entry into Iraq is that he hasn’t pressed to win, and he has allowed the State Department to co-opt him (that’s a charitable reading of the case, BTW) into suing for peace with Iran without entering the all-but-inevitable conflict with the mullahs. For that failure, we will all pay a heavy price in the probably near future, and at least in part because of his weaselly stances, our victory is by no means a sure thing.

I guess many of us were taken in with the whole Neo-Con thing. After all, most of the NeoCons were weaned on the left wing ideology of the 60s but then later had an epiphany. Turns out that they were just as much in favor of big government as the Left… just for different causes. They were certainly not conservative in the Goldwater or Reagan sense. They somehow convinced us that big government and interventionist warfare were somehow “conservative values”.

The use of ad hominem invective is, of course, no monopoly of the GOP, but more or less a constant of our politics from its inception. Read what they wrote about Hamilton and Burr in the early days of the Republic, for example.

More recently, from FDR’s “malefactors of great wealth” to Hillary’s “vast right-wing conspiracy” to the constant resort to “racism,” “nativism,” “sexism,” “homophobia” and “theocracy,” not to speak of the ever-popular “fascism,” the left has developed its own varieties of slingable mud.

It’s something of a pipe dream that in a democracy issues could be discussed freely, on their merits, without resort to rhetorical devices to rouse hackles and the rabble. As a friend of mine once said of a malefactor we were dealing with, there’s no point in getting angry. Might as well get angry at a rattlesnake for being venomous.

Wear your boots and watch where you step in the underbrush.

Pathetic. Even while apologizing for the messy miscarriage of the Bushpig era, cons still have to resort to this kind of crap. Let’s get one thing straight - Bush and the leading lights of his dimwitted administration learned most of their lessons from NIXON. And Saint Reagan wasn’t above this sort of thing, either.

The inability of cons to be honest about their own history is why the next Republican nominee will be the same sort of malign thug Dumbya has been… or even worse. You people can’t help yourselves any more - you’re drawn to authoritarian flag-waving sloganeering morons like moths to a flame.

I agree that the amnesty has the potential to do far more damage to the social structure, political habits and culture of the country, and so I suppose I probably overstated the importance of the other things, but all of the other policies he has advanced have been distastrous in their respective spheres of fiscal management, controlling the growth of government and foreign relations. What puzzles me is how the same people who spent five years cheering on, or at least acquiescing in, these other disasters can now claim shock or surprise that he has pursued another disastrous policy.

I guess some people don’t get angry with Bush until its their own particular ox that is being gored, but what is curious about Ms. Noonan’s reaction is that she has hardly been vehement on the subject of immigration herself. I have remarked on that in the past. She is certainly an enforcement-first sort, but controlling illegal immigration has hardly been an issue that really energised her in the past. Granted, she writes for the Journal, which limits how energised she can be about the subject, but it is odd that this, of all things, has finally pushed her into open rebellion. It is not so odd that she remains silent on the role of the Journal and its many contributors in collaborating in this gargantuan fraud against the nation.

As for the role of movement regulars in smearing antiwar conservatives, I did point to this in the post. Perhaps I should have been more explicit. I assumed readers would get my point from the brief references I made.

Of course, there is also something rich about many anti-immigration conservatives, who went along with every other illegal thing this administration has done, suddenly becoming very exercised about the sanctity of the rule of law. I suppose you can shred the Constitution with one hand while pointing to federal law and gesturing approvingly with the other hand, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense to do this.

These aren’t disillusioned naifs: they’re Thermidorians looking for a way to distance themselves from a man they helped put and keep in power without mentioning the principal reason that he’s so unpopular. I’m not saying that their disagreement over the immigration bill isn’t sincere: I’m saying it’s convenient.

To give his erstwhile supporters a bit of credit, the issue of immigration was somewhat less urgent when the Republicans controlled the House. At least we could hope for Hastert and Sensenbrenner to help us, and last year, prior to the election, they did. We can expect no such mercy from Pelosi and Conyers, whose chief objection seems to be that this new bill is not lenient enough, and so the rage is, sensibly, much greater now that Bush’s plan is that much closer to becoming law.

For many of us - I was a former, qualified supporter of Bush - immigration simply is for more important than the war or trampling the Constitution (if you trample a corpse, does the corpse care?). You may find that ignoble, but the effects of unrestrained immigration are readily apparent to us every day, and it further has the potential to wreck America in a way that even another fifty years of ignominy on the Euphrates simply can’t.

Finally, the President’s dogged insistence on this issue is enough to stoke the rage even of otherwise enthusiastic supporters. They didn’t like “comprehensive reform” the first time, liked it less the second time, and now they’re rather naturally quite upset that he keeps insisting on foisting on them something they’ve rejected with increasing enthusiasm each time it’s been presented..