Well, great: the Senate voted for comprehensive immigration reform. Now it's on to the House, where the plan is to throw out the Senate bill, presumably cook up a bill so hard-assed it doesn't count as reform at all, and maybe not even pass that. So forgive me if I'm not breaking out the champagne.
Yeah, on one issue Republicans -- by which I mean some Republicans in one House of Congress (and a minority of those Republicans at that) -- are sufficiently concerned about their party's extremism that they're willing to see reason. But that's not going to prevent the Beltway from using this as yet another opportunity to slip into denial mode about the irreversible dysfunction of our political system, thanks to the GOP.
So we have this:
But senators see this year's immigration debate as a welcome return to some semblance of ordinary legislating.....Stop. Just stop. This is not "a welcome return to" anything, if by "welcome return" you mean "Thank God we're back to normal." This is an anomalous situation -- one issue, and as far as I know the only issue, on which some Republicans think there are ideas worth considering (if only to preserve their political survival) that would never be heard on Fox News. After this, it's back to business as usual. And any idiot insider who tells you otherwise -- and a lot of them will -- is delusional.
"It has been a step in the right direction with eight senators putting the bill forward. The committee markup was robust," said Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La....
Landrieu said that final passage of the immigration bill shows that major legislation can indeed sprout through the muck of partisan squabbles. "I'm trying to be one of those green shoots," she said a few hours before the Senate's vote.
... basic cordiality among senators was on display throughout the process. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who voted against the bill, congratulated Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., on the Senate floor for the fair and transparent way he shepherded the bill through his committee.
Can we all get along? No, we can't. Not until the Fox-ification of the GOP is a distant memory.
