Tocqueville and I disagree sharply on immigration. He has been collecting highlights from the discussion on the web against the "compromise" bill, as well as contributing an outstanding original piece to our discussion yesterday (read here).

Today's haul of op-ed pieces seems especially fertile and noteworthy. It strikes me that we are fast approaching the moment of truth. The fruit of Tocqueville's efforts:


1. Peggy Noonan: President Bush has torn the conservative coalition asunder.

"What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them. What President Bush is doing, and has been doing for some time, is sundering a great political coalition. This is sad, and it holds implications not only for one political party but for the American future."

"This White House thinks its base is stupid and that its heart is in the wrong place."

"The president has taken to suggesting that opponents of his immigration bill are unpatriotic--they 'don't want to do what's right for America.'"

"They are trying to lay down markers for history. Having lost the support of most of the country, they are looking to another horizon. The story they would like written in the future is this: Faced with the gathering forces of ethnocentric darkness, a hardy and heroic crew stood firm and held high a candle in the wind. It will make a good chapter. Would that it were true!" (read the column in its entirety here).

2. Charles Krauthammer: Get in Line, Einstein

"[T]he campaign for legalization does not stop at stupidity and farce. It adds mendacity as well. Such as the front-page story in last Friday's New York Times claiming that "a large majority of Americans want to change the immigration laws to allow illegal immigrants to gain legal status."

"Sounds unbelievable. And it is. A Rasmussen poll had shown that 72 percent of Americans thought border enforcement and reducing illegal immigration to be very important. Only 29 percent thought legalization to be very important. Indeed, when a different question in the Times poll -- one that did not make the front page -- asked respondents if they wanted to see illegal immigrants prosecuted and deported, 69 percent said yes" (read the op-ed in its entirety here).

3. Hugh Hewitt: Can Any Immigration Bill Be Saved?

"At this point I take out my Harriet Miers Fan Club charter membership card and put it on the table: This push for this bill is a disaster, Mr. President. Much much worse than the Miers nomination on which you had many good arguments, or the ports deal, on which you had fewer. On this issue there is no place to stand, and you are asking your friends in the Senate to go down fighting for a bad bill.

"It is a bad bill because no one believes the government can conduct millions of background checks (many spokesmen for the bill don't even pretend to know where the paperwork will go!). No one believes the bill will halt the next 12 million. No one believes you are going to assure the fence gets built. No one believes that the employer verification system will get done or work when some half-assed version of it does get done. No one believes that the probationary visas don't automatically convert illegal aliens with few if any rights into Due Process Clause covered legal migrants, with a Ninth Circuit ready and waiting to keep them here for decades" (read the entire post here).

4. Jim Pinkerton: An Optimistic Prediction:

"On immigration, the GOP finally exorcise(s) itself - rejecting the president's not-so-well-disguised amnesty plan. Whereupon Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) presidential prospects [are] blown away; the Arizonan...disappear[s] in a dust-devil of four-letter insults aimed at fellow Republicans.

"Opponents of the 2007 immigration bill, led by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), force a series of votes on hot-button issues: Should English be the official language of the United States? Should illegal aliens be able to collect Social Security benefits? Should bilingualism be protected? Should dual citizenship with Mexico be expanded?

"In each instance, The New York Times counsel[s] the Democrats to vote in favor of "sophisticated" open-borders liberalism. And, of course, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.), each hungering for The Times' presidential endorsement, [are] eager to please. But the "Reagan Democrats" - the folks who had elected populist Democrats such as Jim Webb and Jon Tester to the Senate in 2006 - [are] not so pleased.

"So when the Republicans finally [find] their voice on immigration, the Reagan Democrats [are] re-Reaganized. Finally, Republicans [are] speaking about realism and the national interest, always a winner for them.

"The Democrats [try] to fight back, using the health care issue, but the GOP [is] ready with a response, pointing to moderate health plans enacted by Republican governors from Massachusetts to California.

"Finally, late in the '08 campaign, the Democrats attempt to energize their own small base, endorsing gay marriage and repeal of the Patriot Act."

It [doesn't] work. The Republicans, nominating a ticket free of any close association with the outgoing administration, [win] a comfortable victory.

It could happen. Read all of Pinkerton here.

Thanks again, Tocqueville for your diligence on this issue.