With apologies to George 
Pickett, one can only hope
that this most recent
campaign to pass so-called comprehensive immigration reform represents the closest Bush, Kennedy McCain and the rest will likely come to achieving their goal of completely dismantling the borders of the USA.
After years of strategic moves to ensure that amnesty supporters were inserted in key positions - remember Bush's campaign for Arlen Specter during his primary challenge, and his subsequent elevation to chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee? Or Mel Martinez' appointment to lead the RNC? Or the appointment of Chertoff, who seems to care more about the price of lettuce than the enforcement of immigration law? - the momentum was all on the side of the amnesty crowd. This latest push seemed to have a strong chance of succeeding, but at the very moment when passage of the legislation was so close and defeat seemed so near, the tide was turned and the bill was beaten back.
The bodies of the injured and fallen are scattered across the field of battle: John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Sam Brownback, and not least of all the seriously wounded President Bush, who invested every last remaining resource at his disposal to advance a bill that was massively unpopular among just about every voting group. The civil war here was truly one fought between and among conservatives, with the Democrats as pleased bystanders, happy to profit either through the bill's passage (12 million new Democratic voters) or simply through the political carnage Bush wrought on his own party by pushing it.
Will the victors seize the moment by pushing back and finally fighting the war on their own terms?
