Giuliani Claims Centrist Position; Dooms His Campaign

Here comes Captain Ed:

Rudy Giuliani either has given up attempting to sound conservative or has forgotten that all presidential primary politics is national in today’s media environment. While trying to woo Californians, Rudy claimed that he would govern in the same manner as Arnold Schwarzenegger has in the Golden State — a promise that may not thrill Republicans in or out of California:

Mayor Giuliani is telling California voters wondering what kind of president he would make that they need to look no further than their popular Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger.”I governed very much like your governor does,” Mr. Giuliani said as he described his tenure as mayor of New York from 1994 to 2001. “I got results and I want people to look at that and say that’s the way I would govern as president of the United States. I would get results,” he said.

In a deft bit of political footwork, Mr. Giuliani managed to declare himself simpatico with the governor without actually specifying any of the issues where the two men hold similar views. Some of those stances, such as support for abortion rights and gay rights, antagonize large swaths of the Republican base in the Golden State and across the country.

Rudy has spent a lot of time and effort to burnish his conservative credentials on the campaign trail. He has tried to argue that his position on abortion represents a small area of disagreement in comparison to a wide range on agreement with conservatives, with middling success. Giuliani argues — and George Will supports him on this point — that Giuliani provided the most conservative government possible in New York City, and he’s almost certainly correct.

However, Rudy threatens to undermine that by hitching his wagon to the Governator.

Well, he is, as you say, trying to grab the center, while still casting himself as a conservative, albeit a ‘compassionate’ one.  Is there anyone reading this who doesn’t understand why such a ploy wouldn’t work very well, with either side of the isle?  He seems to be trying to latch onto the relative positioning held by President Bush… rather tenuous ground to be standing on in a Republican Primary, after 16 years of centerist Presidents leaning left at will.

Me at Q&O just now:

>>

Think about who was pushing this immigration deal:

A moderate Republican president, a bunch of liberal Republican Congress critters, and a gaggle of liberal Democrat Congress critters.  Remember, as I’ve said all along, Bush is no conservative, never has been.

So, now let’s examine the momentum set up by yesterday’s action in Foggy Bottom…

* This amnesty nonsense, got sent to defeat. Score one for conservatives.
* The supposed “fairness doctrine” bites the dust by a wide margin, That’s two.
* The supreme court decides that the best way to stop a racism is to stop making laws based on race. That’s the hat trick.

So, now, The Democrats are taking their opposition to the war seriously again?  Laughable.
Rather than this being Reid trying to, as you suggest, capitalize on the defeat of the President, it looks from here like Reid is trying to play to his base so as to recover something of the large amount of momentum he’s lost to the conservatives.

His ability to do that, though, now that the conservative base has been fired up to the extent it has, is limited at best. This effort too, will fail.

Update: Mark Tapscott is on the same wavelength, and says in part:

We have been blessed with three signal victories. First, there was the success of the Right side of the Blogosphere in stopping the attempted revival of the Bush/Kennedy/McCain immigration reform bill in the Senate.  Nobody can legitimately doubt now that conservative New Media has genuine political power to shape American public policy.

Well, that and Talk Radio. And Tapscott adds a victory I’d neglected…(You know you’re doing pretty well, when you forget the list certain among your victories…)

In FEC v Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., Messers Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Kennedy struck down a key provision of the McCain-Feingold assault on the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of political speech, the ban on certain broadcast ads aired during the 60 days prior to a general election and 30 days prior to a primary election.

Which, in turn, serves to put a chokehold on McCain’s run for the presidency.  After all, he was the one who cosponsored that monstrosity.  But that’s another post.

James Joyner, who I have been quoting an unforgivable amount the last day or so, was among the first to post a comment as regards The U.S. supreme court’s ruling on race discrimination.  Specifically the decision (Text) handed down stated flatly that you cannot use racial discrimination as a cure for racial discrimination.

Well what do you know says I, there’s hope for humanity after all.  Upon reading it, I came quickly to the conclusion that the basis has been laid for reversing both Grutter v. Bollinger and the Bakke case, from 2003. My comment to James was, essentially, what a difference a few years makes. There would appear to be a serious shift occurring within the Supreme Court, and frankly it’s one that I am relieved to see after too many years of one Liberal court after another.
I have a rather simple argument against using racial discrimination to cure racial discrimination; it’s unconstitutional. But more, it’s immoral.  As I said back in the day of Bollinger;

The court’s ruling Grutter v. Bollinger, basically re-affirms the Bakke ruling, which essentially is that race SHOULD be a factor when dealing with admissions. The ruling does go on to state that yes, the policy does, in fact “reaffirm the Law School’s longstanding commitment to one particular type of diversity,” That is to say, it engages in racial bias. Not only that, but racial bias that is subjective, arbitrary, and subject to the bias of those running the program. (I would defy anyone to tell me that this description doesn’t capture the situation in Alabama back in the 50’s…. )

So much for Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream that we will “live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” This ruiling cuts that idea off at the knees.

So much for Justice John Marshall Harlan’s dissenting opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson saying “The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color.”

So much for the Civil rights act of 1964.

And, for that matter, so much for the 14th amendment.

Worse, it appears that the Court’s defacto overturning of these ideals was intended to fix a problem that did not exist… There has never been documented discrimination that has ever surfaced at the University of Michigan as regards admissions. Not one. As a matter of fact, because of the policy that was being defended by the school, Black students were 170 times more likely than whites to be admitted to the Ann Arbor school. The Court however, ignored this point, and claimed
it’s ruling to be acting on the basis of the “compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body”

Well, I have two arguments against this as a basis.

*Such an interest is by no means a constitutional argument, but rather, a political argument… and a short-term political argument at that. Even the key vote in this case, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s declares, “…we expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary.”

One presumes that at such a point, the court will again be asked to rule, and will reverse its decision. For the sake of discussion, and examination, let’s assume the constitution remains fairly well static between now and then, as it has for much of it’s 200 plus years of life. If the need, much less the remedy, is a constitutional issue, how could such measures EVER NOT be needed?  Unless the constitution itself changes, something doesn’t change status from constitutional to
unconstitutional and back again. These race-based initiatives are both illegal and unconstitutional. So to effect this ruling, we must ignore the Constitution.

So, the court figures maybe in 25 years (…. Or, maybe not… Justice Ginsburg reminds us we can’t accept a guarantee of the timing, here…) these measures won’t be needed anymore. Did we simply put the Constitution on “hold” for 25 years or more, until someone decides to start enforcing the Constitution? If so, what’s to guarantee we won’t disregard it again, at some need or other, and for less popular reasons?

Despite even that concern, this nonsense might be a little easier to accept if I thought for one hot second that in 25 years, or 2500 years, for that matter, that given this ruling, and these guidelines, racism would magically disappear altogether. I could even see an argument that it might be worth the sacrifice… if it showed any hope whatever of working as advertised. It doesn’t. This ruling is counter productive to that goal, and will not have that effect, which leads me to my second point:

**There is a major difference between mandating what we’ll call “RACIAL Diversity” and encouraging “TRUE Diversity”. “Racial diversity” simply means we have a lot of different races represented in a given sector of society. “True diversity” means that we have a lot of different styles of thinking, points of view, politics, ideation, etc. regardless of the race of each individual involved.

As such, I submit there is no compelling state or societal interest in mandating Racial Diversity per se’, in a racially neutral society, which we are supposedly striving to be.

Make no mistake from my comments; Diversity of thought… of ideas, or opinions is a fine goal… to be lauded and it constitutes the largest interest of the state. It should be pursued. Apparently that’s the goal being sought by the Court, when it seeks to force diversity by forcing racial diversity. I must give the court credit for keeping that goal in mind.

However, can the pursuit of that goal get tangled when we try to get there through mandated racial diversity? Can it get wrapped up in stereotypical nonsense? It appears so. Consider the comments of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who in his dissent, cited the testimony of a former director of admissions at the UM Law School that when the question came up about whether Cubans should be counted as Hispanics, one professor objected on the grounds that Cubans were Republicans. Do you think Racial Equality was foremost on THAT gent’s mind, or was it pure, liberal-biased, stereotyping politics, base on race alone?

The Court in Bollinger seems to be working under the idea that they’ll get us to True Diversity, through mandating Racial Diversity. This is a flawed, possibly fatal path to the stated goals of True Diversity and our being a racially neutral society. Following this path in fact will reverse much of the good work done already toward the essential goal of making us a less race conscious, and more race-neutral nation, as the Constitution demands. Even the court itself, in Justice O’Conner’s writings, tacitly admits this.

This court-directed pursuit of True Diversity by means of counting the color of each nose going by the admissions gate in our schools, (and one presumes, other sectors of our society, as well) is based on the revolting assumption that a person’s race is in total control of their thought processes, opinions, and their ideas. Not only will I point out that such stereotyping is in fact racism, I say it is racism of a most ugly kind. It is one that should not be tolerated under ANY condition, least of which under the guise of ‘diversity’.

We fought a rather vicious war, about half a century back, against a group of people called Nazis, led by an idiot with a weird mustache who operated under that same racist idea, that race is at the center of one’s being, that ones thoughts, actions and ideas are all dependent on their race, and it’s purity. Re-applied here in the US, as the court seems to be allowing, here, this idea will at least lead down the road of racial stereotyping and increased racial consciousness.

The Law school ruling is particularly troubling in it’s inconsistency with the writings this week of the ruling’s principle author, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who wrote on Thursday in Georgia vs. Ashcroft, that ” the court should be working to “…encourage the transition to a society where race no longer matters: a society where integration and color-blindness are not just qualities to be proud of, but are simple facts of life.”

Nice words, and commendable, and quite correct. Thing is, that stated goal is 180 degrees out of phase with the Bollinger ruling. Possibly it’s more accurate to suggest that the Bollinger ruling was off kilter with everything else.

One more point not too many people like talking about was brought forward by Justice Thomas, who cited Morehouse College, where lass than 1% of the student body was white, or Hispanic. “Do we have any sense”, Thomas argues, “that the traditionally black colleges will now start admitting more whites for the sake of diversity? ”

Thomas of course is correct. How, if at all, will this ruling change the racial balance situations in those places? Isn’t diversity equally valuable in those places? Rather makes one wonder about the value some place on this mandate of racial diversity.

Do not mistake my comments. I do not question the members of the court on their desire to get our society to a situation where racism doesn’t exist. Nor do I suggest that this is not a valid and worthy, and indeed, a vital goal. I do question, however using racism as a tool to fight racism, on logical, moral, AND constitutional grounds. I say again: Diversity of race for it’s own sake is racism, plain and simple.

Thurgood Marshall warned us about such things in Brown:

“Distinctions by race are so evil, so arbitrary and invidious that a state, bound to defend the equal protection of the laws must not invoke them in any public sphere.”

It angers me that this court has ignored that admonition. What angers me more is that also they ignored the advise of someone closer to the hearts of most Americans than Marshall… Namely, Frederick Douglass, a fellow Rochesterian, who addressed this point as well as any I can think of, even though the haze that 150 years of language difference can and does bring:

“What I ask for the Negro, is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice . . .. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!….. ..our interference is doing him positive injury.”

The court has once again, disregarded these pleas. All that’s left behind is more confusion, and more of the legal racism we’ve been trying to rid ourselves from since the middle 1800’s..

The court took these Michigan cases, supposedly to end the argument about the constitutionality of racial bias being applied to try and solve racial bias. (Irony abounds)

The answer to this issue was obvious, and the court missed it, trying to find shades of grey where they simply do not exist. Racism is, ironically, a black and white issue, as are most things, in the end. It’s either there, or it’s not. It’s either legal, or it’s not. We either support racism in our system of laws, or we don’t. A clear-cut ruling, reaffirming the dreams of Dr King, the pleas from Mr. Douglass, the advise of Justice Marshall, Justice Harlan, and the law of the land in the form of the 14th amendment was what was needed. Instead, what we got flew in the face of all of that wisdom.

That was back in 03.

So, needless to say, I was glad to see the ruling of today.

.

However, I was a little concerned to see the separate opinion issued by Justice Kennedy, who disagreed with the majorities reasoning, more or less stated above. Apparently, word hasn’t gotten to him yet, that we are supposed to be a race neutral neutral country.  According to Kennedy, race may be used as a criteria if diversity is the goal.  What about “race neutral” does Justice Kennedy not understand? what about “not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” does Mr Justice Kennedy not understand?

Am I to conclude that Mr. Justice Kennedy is a racist?

.

If so,it must be said in fairness, that Kennedy is not alone in this. After all, several people all along the incidental chain between here and there, had to agree with him, for the case to get all the way to the Supreme Court.  Apparently we have work to do, yet, in that regard. Justice Kennedy actually reading the constitutional prohibitions against using racial preferences would be a start.  This whole thing is going to be an educational process, consisting of many years, I fear. On reading the opinion of Mr. Kennedy today , I must say that educational process has to start with some of the inhabitants of the court.
.

One other observation on this ruling…

I think in coming nearly full circle on the issue of being able to use racial discrimination as a cure for racial discrimination the high court has proved its own fallibility.  Because if you think about it, these rulings and these philosophies that the rulings are based on are complete opposites… such rulings from opposite ends of the spectrum cannot possibly be both constitutional.  It brings one back to the specter of trying to get the court to reverse the Dred Scott decision. In reversing that abominable decision, the court never got around to admitting it was wrong.  They simply cited some sociological mumbo jumbo, Zip, Bam, all better. So perhaps before any of the rest of it gets fixed, the first thing we have to do is to get the court to admit that it is in fact a fallible institution.  It is comprised of human beings, after all.  One does not assigned to the heights of God-hood once one dons the black robe.

Of course, there’s Hell to pay to get that lesson across.

• Well, Billy.. It’s why I stopped reading Sullivan some years ago.  It was truly sad to see and devolve into the blithering idiot he’s become.  If anything, over the years, he’s actually gotten worse; now apparently considering himself to be the center of the universe. What is truly troubling, is that he still considers himself a conservative.  The measure by which he manages to squeeze himself into that category, still eludes me…. Though I think I’d be more worried… I’d take it as a sign of madness… if I actually understood how he does that. I’m quite sure that he’d be able to explain a great detail.
• It is always amazing to me, to see newspapers, who will invariably take the side of the unions in an employment dispute, when they become embroiled in an dispute of their own.  The high sounding rhetoric which emanates from the newspapers under normal circumstances, suddenly becomes covered by a giant cone of silence.  (What?) …..Powerline has details
• Gee, big surprise; it turns out that the RIAA’s investigation techniques have been extra-legal.  Techdirt fills us in.
• Ace asks an interesting question as regards the unfairness doctrine. “Without talk radio, would there have been any debate on this amnesty abomination at all? Who would have given fair coverage to the position favored by at least 70% of Americans?”  Who, indeed.  Think about it this way; without talk radio and without the blogs that abomination would be the law.  That would be a direct outcome of the implementation of the so called “fairness doctrine”.
• By the way, I have just revealed one of the flaws in doing these nightly rambles in bulleted format: block quotes don’t work.  Gonna work on that.
• I got a first place in the OTB Caption Contest. All in good pun. Speaking of OTB James addresses the question of “What to do with Al Gore?”  Personally, I would seriously consider starting a fire by rubbing his ears together.
• Michelle Malkin reminds us that there is a democratic party presidential debate at Howard university tonight.  I guess that one slipped my mind.  Given the events of today, guess what the main topic is going to be?
• Speaking of which, the amnesty bill is not due for another resurrection until the end of the Bush presidency.  Apparently, they figure they’re not going to get it through with the current Congress.  Probably true.  But guess what?  Given the numbers I’m seeing right now in terms of satisfaction ratings with the democrats in Congress, it’s not gonna get past next time, either.
• Speaking of dead letters, it would appear that the “fairness doctrine” is off the table for the time being, as well.  They …..probably figure try again after ’08. but I doubt they’ll get the chance, for the same reasons. HotAir has the details there. Alex Bolton has just posted something to The Hill on that topic, and Ramesh is on it at NRO, as well.
• The left is having a cow for the Supreme Court rulings about the school integration plans.  I’ll get into that an extended post later tonight.  I’ve already written a substantial amount of it in various comment sections around the place.
• So, let’s see here.  The Democrats got sent packing on this amnesty nonsense, the supposed “fairness doctrine” bites the dust by a wide margin, and the supreme court decides that the best way to stop a racism is to stop making laws based on race.  I’d say all in all that ends up being a good day.

McQ over at OTB brings up the other day, a study in listenership numbers for the various talk stations around the country. he’s done a pretty fair job, of cataloging all of this.

I respond to him:

The Limbaugh/Hannity station, WABC pulls a 3.7 while WWRL, the AA crew, pulls a .6.

Your points are well taken, however it should be noted that while WABC is a 50kw clear at Lodi, NJ,with an omnidirectional pattern and huge coverage at night….(I get it here 450 miles away during the day often as not) WWRL is on 1600… by definition a graveyard channel, with a highly directional 4 tower pattern, running 25kw day and 5kw night. The night signal is bad enough that fifteen to twenty miles away, the signal cannot be heard at many points on the compass.

Perhaps a better comparison of the programming and it’s relative draw would be in the Buffalo market about 60 miles to my west. The big talker in town, is 930/WBEN. this is a 5000 watter, with facilities on Grand Island. This is the station that carries Limbaugh within the market, and has lots of local talk, as well.

The supposedly “progressive” station, (which just dropped Air America about a year back for another ‘progressive’ lineup because of AA’s abysmal ratings), is WKBW/1520. They share tower space on Grand island with WBEN which is co-owned. While somewhat directional, KB runs 50kw 24 hours and has enormous coverage particularly to the south and east. As a result of that signal, KB was one of the big voices of top-40 radio back in the day.
Some coverage maps for local staions, including the ones I mention can be found here.

These days, the Big KB has sunk rather low… Their new format, seems to be doing somewhat better than the old one. But it’s still not competitive. It seemingly can’t seem to draw half the listeners that WBEN does, where WBEN is running 1/10th the power.

He responds, in part;

In Rochester, Limbaugh/Hannity pull a 10.4 on WHAM while WROC where Schultz is, has a 1.0

And of course at that point, the light goes on. I tell him:

Interesting that you should mention the business with WHAM vs WROC, because it adds a little interesting twist to your story.

WHAM is a 50kw clear on 1180.
WROC is a 1kw directional on 950

Now, there are those who will argue that the 1kW station is drawing lower numbers, because of its minuscule power, comparatively. on the surface the argument makes sense, to those who don’t know the local history.

From about 1956, until 1987, what is now WROC was WBBF, the local top 40. keep in mind, this was during the period that WKBW was kicking serious butt over in Buffalo. Little WBBF was clobbering the entire market for listener numbers. At that time, everybody else in town, save one station (250watt WYNR a daytimer on 680) was higher power than BBF was. Mostly, 5000 watters… and by the latter half of the period a couple big top-40 FM’s had come online, too) And yet, BBF led ’em all, in all dayparts and in all demos for years and years. It’s only the last twenty years are so, that WHAM has been getting the lion’s share of the numbers.

Of course, the point I’m making, is the same as you were making; that the programming is the key.

And later on, during the conversation:

As a direct result, of course, leftist slanted talk radio, has almost never been a profitable venture. Radio execs, of course, are driven by dollars and cents. They put up, as a direct result of that desire for cash, what the audience wants to hear. That’s called a free market.

But understand the basis of their argument that the current state of affairs is a failure; the leftist believes, that any failure to get their message out there, for whatever reason, is a failure of the free market. Bake the free market should be giving them a free voice.

Put another way; the complaint of the leftist when he starts talking about radio and freedom of speech, is that he thinks freedom of speech means that he’s got a guaranteed audience. Well, clearly, the constitution was never intended to provide such. And just as clearly, the left is ill equipped to get people to listen to their nonsense, on their own. So, the only solution to them is big government and forcing their listenership.

And again, Just this afternoon, I had an epiphany of sorts.  I just dropped this to McQ:

In discussing this with a friend via another medium, he pointed out the idea that given the same programming, the larger station will always win. I brought up our local situation with the 50,000 watter, and the 1000 watter, and told him the story. He suggested, that were you to place the same programming on both stations, the 50kw station would win on numbers, hands down. I accepted that seemingly axiomatic point, and we moved on from there.

But later on, it occurred to me what he was really suggesting… I got to thinking about what the left sees as the quality of their ideas. I’ve come to the conclusion that they are so upset about “lack of opportunity” because they figure their point of view, their opinion, and their means of expressing it, are the equal to that of the dominant conservatives. On that basis, they figure if they got a “fair chance” their opinions, their positions on the issues of the day, would be heard more often. Thereby, conservative talk radio would be less dominant…. which of course is their goal.

The problem here, is that perception of their views being at least equal to that of the conservative majority is a complete fallacy. They can’t bring themselves to believe that the reason they are less dominant, is not because of the technical qualities the radio or television stations they are on, it’s simply because of the quality of the content of the programming. Specifically, people are not buying their opinions. Their point of view. It must be some other reason, by their thinking.

Of course, being big government types, their immediate diagnosis is that it’s a failure of government policy.

And that really is the crux of the whole thing.  They can’t bring themselves to admit this is not a situation of lack of exposure.  They can’t bring themselves to admit that this is a situation of people not understanding what modern day liberalism represents.  This is not a failure of the free market , as if they actually cared about the free market at all, anyway. This current state of affairs in talk radio is the success of the free market. People do understand what liberalism represents and they have rejected it .

That’s what the free market does; it separates the wheat from the chaff, the good products from the bad, and the good ideas from the bad.  Beta versus VHS versus DVD versus blu ray.

In all cases, and in all fields of endeavor, the inferior products are superseded by the superior.  That’s what happens in a free market.  So it is with the free market of ideas, as well.

If the government for some crazy reason had come along and created laws stating that providers of recorded video product such as movies had to sell their product on both VHS and DVD, I daresay we’d be selling a few more VHS tapes, just now.  That, however, it does not say that the quality would be as good.  Nor does it say that people would be watching the inferior product.
The liberals and their point of view on things, is in the process of being superseded by better ideas.  And yes, and government regulation, as with the Video tapes, would give them some time… but understand; what they’re using government for in the case of the “fairness doctrine” runs directly against of what the American people have said repeatedly with their feet, and with their tuning buttons, that they want.

Well, good. As I suggested earlier today:

WASHINGTON —AP- A defiant group of senators refused to continue down the path of a widely unpopular immigration reform bill Thursday, putting up a roadblock on a procedural debate and squeezing out any time left to work on one of President Bush’s top domestic priorities.  On the cloture vote — the test to end debate and move to passage — the Senate voted 46-53 not to carry the motion. Sixty votes were needed for forward progress.

OK, guys, now that the show is over, and common sense is prevailed, can we get to securing the damn border?   

A press release from the Mitt Romeny campaign:

Boston, MA – Today, Governor Mitt Romney issued the following statement on the United States Senate’s vote on the immigration reform bill:

“The immigration bill failed because the politicians in Washington are out of touch with the American people. The voice of the people is loud and clear – secure the border, enforce the law and no special deal for permanent residency or citizenship for illegals. America will always welcome legal immigration, but as a nation we also insist on the rule of law.”

A partial list of Senators voting for Shamnesty, Source US Senate:

Biden (D-DE)
Clinton (D-NY)
Hagel (R-NE)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
McCain (R-AZ)
Obama (D-IL)
All of these Senators think, or have thought at one time, that they were fit to be president.   Yet can we afford a president who so out of touch with the American People to have voted for Shamnesty?  I say no.  What say you senators?

?

Word on the street (Mostly e-mail chatter… my mailbox is nutz this morning… though Fox has started coverage recently, and the bloggers have piped up with it this morning) is that this amnesty bill, that’s been so much the discussion of late, could be dead by noon today.  Ready for this? from what I’m hearing Max Bacchus and Jon Tester… the two senators from Montana, both of whom are Democrats… What  added an amendment that would have weakened requirements on employers to verify that new workers are legal residents.  This apparently ended up in a results of the bill not being able to go forward with the consent of all the Senators.

Hey, whatever works.

Others noting the situation: michellemalkin.com, (as always) as well as The Politico, The Hill, Hot Air,   Captain’s Quarters, JammieWearingFool,  Don Surber, and RWN.

Update: (David L)  The Pig is dead.  The shamnesty bille failed to get a simple majority:

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Senate drove a stake Thursday through President Bush’s plan to legalize millions of unlawful immigrants, likely postponing major action on immigration until after the 2008 elections. The bill’s supporters fell 14 votes short of the 60 needed to limit debate and clear the way for final passage of the legislation, which critics assailed as offering amnesty to illegal immigrants. The vote was 46 to 53 in favor of limiting the debate.

A long and interesting list of No votes, George Voinovich, Jim Webb, Suisan Collins, Mitch O’Connell.   This pig was a bad bill.  Senators Dirty Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy and John McCain should have learned from Mrs. Clinton’s HillaryCare debacle that controversial plans concocted in secret don’t often survive the light of day.

Ron Paul is ultimately a crackpot.  He does manage to latch onto a good idea every so often, (See also, blind pig, acorn)  but we can do far, far better than him in terms of a representative of libertarian thought. End of communication.

Senator George Voinovich goes on Sean Hannity and shows that Voinovich is not ready for prme time.  Allah Pundit, Hot Air, has the audio.

In fairness to Voinovich he deserves credit for going on to Hannity even if less that prepared.   No senator can be prepared to defend a bill that they have never read. and no senator has read the bill,  The bill was not published until it went to the lloor for a vote.

Yet one American is familar with the bill.  From Michelle Malkin, James Kole sings the “The Amnesty Bill Blues”

[TFPIC] I suggest that Kole move to Ohio, register as a republcan and run for the Senate.   Clearly Kole has far more clues of what is in the bill than does Voinovich.

?