Prometheus 6

I just read the article in the NY Times about this and I wasthunderstruck at how egregiously dishonest Frist, et al were in remarks they made to the press.

Republicans said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, had erected procedural obstacles to the measure in order to deny Senate Republicans a victory on the politically charged subject in an election year.

"There has been one huge problem and that problem has been created by the Democratic leadership," said Mr. Frist.

[...]

Later, Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman said the failure to approve a bill was purely Senator Reid's fault. "This is a difficult and complex issue," he said. "It is important for voices to be heard as the debate moves forward. Unfortunately the Senate minority leader prevented voices from being heard and amendments from being considered."

But what happened was precisely the opposite of what they said:

The late-night battle burst into the open many hours after Senate leaders had resolved their substantive differences over the thorny question of legalization. Conservatives, who condemned the compromise as little more than amnesty for lawbreakers, sought to offer amendments to the bill. But Democrats refused to allow votes on the amendments, saying they were intended to delay the process and gut the legislation.

[...]

"This compromise [viz., the defeated bill--JRM ] would repeat the mistakes of the past, but on a much larger scale because 12 million illegal immigrants would still be placed on an easier path to citizenship," said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas.

I mean, it looks pretty straightforward.  The GOP backbenchers revolted against this bill and the party leadership then makes a peculiarly barebaced lie about it.  I'm neither especially in favor of nor particularly against this particular bill, but I do think there are certain groundrules about lying for Republicans and these usually exclude lying about the explicit positions of their own members.

I occasionally listen to AM radio, partly as an exercise in masochism, partly because I sometimes seriously wonder "What the hell are they going to say about this?"  I prefer to describe the current political Weltanschauung of the GOP as "movement conservative" because Hannah Arendt  had discussed the concept of a "movement" in politics as a prologue to totalitarianism.  And I have to say the MC's are genuinely alarmed by the prospect of the Democrats coming off as "harder" on immigration than their own party.  It must be noted that the MC's are hampered by their total lack of personal insight into the individual attitudes and beliefs of their opponents.  They assume that absolutely any critic of the current president "proves" the speaker is to the left of Pol Pot, so of course they are certain the Democratic Party has all the advantage of doing whatever is expedient on the issue.

Hilarious Addenda from the Associated Press:

Bush Blames Reid on Immigration Bill

I can just imagine:

In a rambling, at times barely choate, press conference yesterday, the President listed several problems created by the recently defeated immigration bill.

"We'd had a spirit of true compromise, real give and take, on Capitol Hill.  And then, suddenly it fell apart and to make matters worse, we now had to deal with something we'd never seen before, which was Harry Reid.  I think he sort of burst from the cranium of Ed Kennedy during a roll call..."