Amnesty is Dead: Score 3

The failed cloture vote of June 28, 2007, was a defeat for both President Bush and Senator Kennedy, who have not been as unusual bedfellows as their senior statuses in each party would imply. The historians will write about this first year of a Congress newly changed hands, the one that could not seem to get many things done, with a mixture of amusement and spin. Whoever desires to depict this period as one of domestic political defeat for President Bush may do so with a great degree of accuracy. Likewise, as Congress enjoys an approval rating even lower than that of the President, the Democrats have failed to pass any major pieces of legislation. Thus, this amnesty bill for illegal aliens went down to defeat despite broad bi-partisan support. President Bush, Senator Reid, and Speaker Pelosi, the senior leaders of the Executive and Legislative branches, favored this bill of amnesty for the illegal aliens. How in the world could they fail to pass a bill that all three supported?
Enter Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Neil Boortz, and the other influential talk radio hosts. Enter Michelle Malkin and an army of conservative bloggers, who read and distributed the contents of the bill to readers and listeners. President Bush and Senators from both parties mis-represented the provisions in the "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" bill, but they "misunderestimated" what an informed electorate could do. The Z-Visa, which illegals could receive after a laughable 24-hour background check (the government can't even operate a metal detector and a personal frisking in that length of time) would give them legal status. They would not have had to pay back taxes, but the bill did mandate a fine, which was never going to be enforced. The Bush administration is known by its fruit: the agents of the Justice Department have never enforced our laws protecting our border. The Conservative Movement refused to buy the snake oil that the White House and the Senators were selling, instead petitioning their Senators actively for the weeks prior to the bill. We whose activities John McCain derided as "extra-curricular politics" influenced lawmakers of both parties.
The result was stunning: only 46 of a necessary 60 sentors voted for cloture on the 28th, sending the bill to defeat for the remainder of this Congressional term. Senator Reid, already hamstrung to 50 in his caucus by Johnson's incapacitation, received support from 12 Republicans, but suffered the defection of 16 Democrats to votes against the bill. The states of West Virginia and Montana each contributed both of their Democrat votes to the defeat of the bill, while Arkansas, Vermont, Michigan, and North Dakota each contributed one of their two (D) votes to stop amnesty. 6 states where Republicans hold both seats (SC, ID, ME, MS, NH, and UT) gave one vote to allow amnesty, as well as both Senators from Arizona. Nebraska and Indiana had the strangest splits, with Hagel and Lugar (R) voting for the bill and Bayh and Nelson (D) voting against it.
This is the third major political victory for the New Media against the establishment - either media or political establishment, that is. The debunking of the Burkett Memos in 2004, the defeat of Harriet Miers' nomination to the Supreme Court, and this defeat of the Amnesty Bill all represent times when the New Media made its voice heard and shocked the establishment world. It matters little that in two of those three instances the Bush administration was on the losing end of the operation; call it enforcement of principles. Score 3 for the bloggers and talk radio!! Hua.