“We Have A Gay Guy. He’s Big, He’s Mean, And He Kills Lots Of Bad Guys. No One Cared That He Was Gay.”

DOD page

Andrew Sullivan with a round-up.

Sullivan:

And the report is absolutely clear that straight servicemembers by large majorities have few problems with openly gay servicemembers. 69 percent of them acknowledge they have fought or worked alongside gay men and women already. A staggering 92 percent of those were fine with lifting the ban. Again: when you know someone is gay, all the fears and stereotypes tend to evaporate. This is not a surprise. The men and women of the US military are among the finest in the land; they want to do the job at hand, not deepen social division or posture politically. They are not bigots. I note one colorful quote from a special ops fighter:

“We have a gay guy [in the unit]. He’s big, he’s mean, and he kills lots of bad guys. No one cared that he was gay.”

And why would they? The other critical point is the inherent conservatism of many gay servicemembers. The last thing they would want to do is make a fuss about their orientation. The overwhelming majority will stay largely closeted in the workplace and battlefield – not out of fear but because it is irrelevant, and they are discreet kinds of people. Rand found that “even if Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell were repealed, only 15% of gay and lesbian Service members would like to have their sexual orientation known to everyone in their unit.”

Kevin Drum:

It turns out that although 30% of respondents think that repealing DADT would affect their unit’s ability to train well together (a number that shows up pretty consistently on every question about the effect of repeal), only 10% think it would affect their own readiness and only 20% think it would affect their ability to train well. In other words, there’s pretty good reason to think that even the 30% number is overstated. It seems to include a fair number of people who are assuming that DADT repeal would have a negative effect on other people even though it wouldn’t have a negative effect on them. My guess is that a lot of this is reaction to a small number of vocal traditionalists, which makes opposition to repeal seem like a bigger deal than it is.

Jeh Johnson, the Pentagon’s chief counsel, agrees, saying that surveys about personnel changes “tend to overestimate negative consequences, and underestimate the U.S. military’s ability to adapt and incorporate within its ranks the diversity that is reflective of American society at large.” I suspect he’s right. In the end, real opposition is probably more in the range of 10-20% than 30%, and even that will probably produce nothing more serious than occasional grumbling and discomfort for a year or two at most. There’s really no further excuse for inaction. It’s time for Barack Obama and the Democratic leadership to figure out a way to cut a deal and get repeal passed before Congress recesses.

John McCormack at The Weekly Standard:

Early reports on the Pentagon’s survey of the troops on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” were nothing but roses for repeal supporters, but the details of the survey complicate that narrative somewhat. While only 20% of troops who have never been deployed to a combat zone say that repeal of DADT would “very negatively” or “negatively” affect their “immediate unit’s effectiveness at completing its mission,” more than 44% of combat troops say repeal would have a negative impact on unit effectiveness:

An exception to the pattern was the response of Service members deployed to a combat zone now or in the past to the circumstance of being “in a field environment or out to sea.” Among all Service members in this group, 44.3% (and 59.4% of Marines—see Q71a in Appendix E) said performance would be “very negatively/negatively” affected in this situation. Of note, among all survey items related to the review’s major subject areas, this item had the highest percentage of Service members reporting negative perceptions about the impact of a repeal.

About 11% of all combat troops surveyed said repeal would “positively” or “very positively” affect performance, while 19% said repeal would have “no effect.” Another 26% of combat troops surveyed said repeal’s affect wold be “equally as positively as negatively.” These troops–who see both negative and positive effects of repeal–are lumped together with those who believe it will have “no effect” under the survey’s “neutral” category.

Spartan living conditions on combat zones may be one reason why combat troops see repeal more negatively than non-combat troops do

Joe.My.God

David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo:

Defense Secretary Bob Gates just called on Congress to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell before the end of the year — while asking that Congress give the military time to implement the change.

Asked by reporters how much time he would need, Gates conceded he didn’t know. But he indicated the the President would keep a close eye on the Pentagon and make sure it didn’t slow roll the implementation.

As expected, the Pentagon’s review of DADT found that repeal of the flawed policy would not have an adverse effect on unit morale or cohesion. But Gates’ unequivocal call for repeal by Congress was perhaps a surprise. The argument he made for repeal cuts particularly sharply for Republicans: if Congress doesn’t repeal DADT in orderly fashion, the federal courts may do it in a haphazard and disruptive way.

Steve Benen:

Commenting on the Pentagon report, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, added, “We treat people with dignity and respect in the armed forces, or we don’t last long in the armed forces: No special cases, no special treatment.”

Igor Volsky has more, including a variety of related highlights from the survey findings. The entire report has been published online here.

As for the larger legislative context, remember, Senate Republicans recently refused to even allow a debate on funding U.S. troops because they wanted to wait for this report. They took a gamble, of sorts — maybe the survey results would show servicemen and women agreeing with the GOP’s anti-gay animus, thus giving the party a boost fighting pro-repeal Democrats.

The gamble failed. We now know a majority of U.S. troops, a majority of U.S. civilians, a majority of the House, a majority of the Senate, the Commander in Chief, the Secretary of Defense, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs are all ready to see DADT repeal move forward.

If John McCain and other anti-gay senators hoped to gain some leverage, those hopes were in vain. They’ve run out of excuses. It’s time for the Senate to do the right and decent thing.

Remember, Democrats only need two Republicans — literally, just two — to break ranks. These GOP senators, if they exist, don’t even have to vote for the spending bill that includes the DADT provision; they just need to let the Senate vote up or own. If this report doesn’t lead two Republicans to drop the nonsense, nothing will.

Gabriel Arana at Tapped:

Two points. Part of the argument for keeping DADT — and the criticism that’s been directed at its opponents — has been that the military is special, that the rules for civil society are not the same as those necessary for a well-disciplined and effective military force. There’s some sense in this; it’s probably why, for instance, we don’t ask military members to vote on each tactical move they have to carry out, or leave the decision of whether the country goes to war to them. If the rights and responsibilities of military members need be different from those of civil society in any way, following decisions made along the chain of command seems to be the most important for maintaining cohesion. Surveying the troops about a policy matter is, in that light, a departure from the military M.O.

But the larger question is whether the rights of any minority group should be put up to a vote. In this case, the results of the study tip the scales in favor of repeal, but that needn’t have been the case — and it shouldn’t matter anyway. Anti-gay activists rely on the prejudice of voters to suppress minority rights — and call it undemocratic when a court rules that the electorate does not have a right to vote on issues like gay marriage or in this case the DADT repeal. But a fundamental feature of our democracy is that the system is reined in from pure mob rule by the (at least in theory) inalienable guarantees of the Constitution. You don’t want the Bill of Rights put up to a vote every time the courts want to extend its protections to a marginalized group, whether public opinion is on your side or not.

Allah Pundit

Open The Closet And Walk To The Outside

Marc Ambinder:

Ken Mehlman, President Bush’s campaign manager in 2004 and a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, has told family and associates that he is gay.

Mehlman arrived at this conclusion about his identity fairly recently, he said in an interview. He agreed to answer a reporter’s questions, he said, because, now in private life, he wants to become an advocate for gay marriage and anticipated that questions would arise about his participation in a late-September fundraiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), the group that supported the legal challenge to California’s ballot initiative against gay marriage, Proposition 8.

“It’s taken me 43 years to get comfortable with this part of my life,” said Mehlman, now an executive vice-president with the New York City-based private equity firm, KKR. “Everybody has their own path to travel, their own journey, and for me, over the past few months, I’ve told my family, friends, former colleagues, and current colleagues, and they’ve been wonderful and supportive. The process has been something that’s made me a happier and better person. It’s something I wish I had done years ago.”

Privately, in off-the-record conversations with this reporter over the years, Mehlman voiced support for civil unions and told of how, in private discussions with senior Republican officials, he beat back efforts to attack same-sex marriage. He insisted, too, that President Bush “was no homophobe.” He often wondered why gay voters never formed common cause with Republican opponents of Islamic jihad, which he called “the greatest anti-gay force in the world right now.”

Mehlman’s leadership positions in the GOP came at a time when the party was stepping up its anti-gay activities — such as the distribution in West Virginia in 2006 of literature linking homosexuality to atheism, or the less-than-subtle, coded language in the party’s platform (“Attempts to redefine marriage in a single state or city could have serious consequences throughout the country…”). Mehlman said at the time that he could not, as an individual Republican, go against the party consensus. He was aware that Karl Rove, President Bush’s chief strategic adviser, had been working with Republicans to make sure that anti-gay initiatives and referenda would appear on November ballots in 2004 and 2006 to help Republicans.

Mehlman acknowledges that if he had publicly declared his sexuality sooner, he might have played a role in keeping the party from pushing an anti-gay agenda.

“It’s a legitimate question and one I understand,” Mehlman said. “I can’t change the fact that I wasn’t in this place personally when I was in politics, and I genuinely regret that. It was very hard, personally.” He asks of those who doubt his sincerity: “If they can’t offer support, at least offer understanding.”

“What I do regret, and think a lot about, is that one of the things I talked a lot about in politics was how I tried to expand the party into neighborhoods where the message wasn’t always heard. I didn’t do this in the gay community at all.”

He said that he “really wished” he had come to terms with his sexual orientation earlier, “so I could have worked against [the Federal Marriage Amendment]” and “reached out to the gay community in the way I reached out to African Americans.”

Mehlman is aware that his attempts to justify his past silence will not be adequate for many people. He and his friends say that he is aware that he will no longer control the story about his identity — which will simultaneously expose old wounds, invite Schadenfruede, and legitimize anger among gay rights activists in both parties who did not hide their sexual orientations.

Michael Triplett at Mediaite:

Ambinder was apparently pushed to run the story two days early after Mike Rogers, whose track record on outing conservative politicians is very good, reported on Blogactive that Ambinder was preparing a story that would confirm that Mehlman was gay and the story was slated for Friday or early next week.

Within an hour of Rogers going public with his scoop that Mehlman was about to come out as gay, Ambinder posted his story.

It’s a rumor that has circulated around Washington, D.C., for years.  Mehlman–who was recently in the news for buying a condo in New York City’s very-gay Chelsea neighborhood–has previously denied he’s gay but now he tells Ambinder that he “arrived at this conclusion about his identity fairly recently” and “anticipated that questions would be asked about his participation in a late-September fundraiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), the group that supported the legal challenge to California’s ballot initiative against gay marriage, Proposition 8.”

[…]

In 2006, Mehlman’s sexual orientation led to an uncomfortable moment for CNN after they edited a transcript and a video that featured Bill Maher outing Mehlman on Larry King Live. That story was later told in the documentary Outrage, which featured Rogers and his work to “out” closeted  gay conservatives who work against the LGBT community.

Ambinder seems like a natural to break the Mehlman story.  In 2006, he wrote about the challenges that Mark Foley scandal created for gay Republicans, including the lavender mafia that surrounded Foley and reached into the Republican establishment. A well-connected openly gay reporter, Ambinder would have the connections inside the web of gay Republicans to convince Mehlman to give him an exclusive.

According to the story, Mehlman and Ambinder have been talking for a number of years about Mehlman coming out and his views on gay issues.

Allah Pundit:

Honestly, I thought the guy came out years ago. Remember when Bill Maher talked about the rumors surrounding him on Larry King’s show — back in 2006? I guess you were the last to know, Ken.

He’s doing this now, it seems, because he wants to drum up publicity for the cause of gay marriage and figures that “Republican whom everyone thought was gay actually is gay” headlines will do the trick. Could be, although Ambinder’s careful to remind readers of the sort of social con initiatives that the GOP pushed during Mehlman’s RNC tenure. That won’t endear him to gay activists, and his newly public identity won’t endear him to social cons. Maybe he should have just worked for gay marriage like Ted Olson and kept his orientation private?

Joe My God:

Andy Towle is reporting that Mehlman has already agreed to chair a “major anti-Prop 8 fundraiser” for Americans For Equal Rights, Ted Olson and David Boies’ outfit. Gee thanks, shitbag. That’s like offering to help rebuild a house when YOU were the fucker that helped BURN IT DOWN.

Towleroad:

Just got off the phone with Chad Griffin, Board President of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, the organization challenging Proposition 8 in federal court, regarding former RNC Chair Ken Mehlman and reports that he is about to come out of the closet.

Griffin tells me that Ken Mehlman is chairing a major fundraiser in late September that has already raised over $1 million for the organization battling Prop 8. The fundraiser is co-chaired by prominent Republican donors Paul Singer and Peter Thiel and will be held at Singer’s home.

A large number of other Republicans are co-hosts of the fundraiser including Mary Cheney, Margaret Hoover, and Steve Schmidt. Dick Gephardt is also among the hosts.

Said Griffin to Towleroad:

“Mehlman has committeed his own resources and been an integral part of the team at the American Foundation for Equal Rights. Our goal is to get as many people who aren’t on the side of gay marriage on our side, and once they are here, to welcome them.”

Said AFER board member Dustin Lance Black:

“Ken represents an incredible coup for the American Foundation for Equal Rights. We believe that our mission of equal rights under the law is one that should resonate with every American. As a victorious former presidential campaign manager and head of the Republican Party, Ken has the proven experience and expertise to help us communicate with people across each of the 50 states.”

John Aravosis at AmericaBlog:

Good for Ken. I know a lot of people will want to criticize him for heading up the GOP as a closeted gay man. He says he only recently came to terms with being gay. I suspect he always knew he was gay, but recently came to terms with accepting it, and embracing it. And good for him. He’s now doing the right thing, helping support marriage equality. I’m not going to fault him for that. Coming out is a horrendously difficult and complicated thing. It’s not rational.

Now, does that mean I oppose efforts to out people who are hurting our community? Absolutely not. I was there with the rest of them calling Mehlamn out for being a closeted gay man running a homophobic political party. Our long-time readers will remember Mehlman Mondays on AMERICAblog. I long talked about Mehlman being the only closet-heterosexual I’d ever heard of – a man not willing to admit he’s straight.

But that doesn’t mean we don’t embrace him now. And not just for strategic reasons. Mehlman, from what Ambinder says, is doing the right thing. He’s now using his position in the GOP to help our community on our number one issue: marriage. For that, he deserves our thanks.

Now, let me say, the GOP was happily anti-gay under Mehlman, so I don’t buy his story that he helped temper their nastiness. They were still homophobic bigots, regardless of what Mehlman did or didn’t do, and he chose to remain as their head. For that, he gets no thanks. But is he making up for it today? You betcha. It’s a start, and a damn good one.

As for the Democratic party, I hope someone at the DNC is starting to sweat. We now have the former head of the Republican party who is to the left of Barack Obama on gay marriage. There’s a virtual groundswell of senior Republicans coming out for marriage equality. It can’t be going unnoticed in the gay community. And while it doesn’t mean 70% of the gay vote will now go Republican instead of Democrat, it does mean that growing numbers of gays and lesbians will starting thinking of the GOP as a legitimate alternative to the Democratic party.

And finally, how about that religious right? The Republicans lied to them about Mehlman for years. And Mehlam himself admits that he used his position as RNC chair to help stop the GOP gay-baiting. The religious right was totally pwned.

Ann Althouse:

Journey? Oh, I hear the dog-whistle. He’s calling the Oprah crowd. Family, friends… supportive… he wants Democrats, women, etc., to care about him. Don’t hate me because I’m/I’ve been a Republican. Love me, because I’m gay, and oh! how I’ve anguished in the company of Republicans.

UPDATE: Michael Calderone at Yahoo

Peter Wehner at Commentary

Gabriel Arana at Tapped

Maria Bustillos at The Awl

Jell-O Shots, Tea, And An Obama Speech

Michelle Malkin:

President Obama will deliver another worthless speech this morning. Don’t take my word for that. The open-borders lobby itself has such “low expectations” that some of its activists are wishing for the days of open-borders Bush.

The White House says it won’t offer any specific policy proposals. But there will be plenty of paeans paid to “comprehensive immigration reform” — second only to “hope and change” as the most vapid, emptiest rhetorical construction in Washington.

With Janet Clownitano in charge at DHS and sovereignty-undermining staffers like illegal alien sanctuary coddler Harold Hurtt and Arizona-bashing ICE chief John Morton, Obama’s appointments tell us all we need to know about his substantive disregard for secure borders and homeland security.

I said on Fox and Friends this morning that it feels like a 2006 time warp. Expect Obama’s speech leading into the Independence Day weekend to channel many of the same open-borders “nation of immigrants” platitudes George W. Bush/Karl Rove peddled before pushing mass amnesty.

Democracy in America at The Economist:

NOT having expected much from the president’s speech today on immigration reform, I don’t have occasion to be disappointed, but still, here I am, drinking a cup of tea and staring forlornly at the drips of rain falling in Austin. Pleasantries, pats on the back to the administration, a long bit of boilerplate about how great immigrants have been for the country, some discussion of the ways in which the current system is broken, some discussion of the tensions on both sides, references to a few points that enjoy broad support: the border should be secured, there’s no way to deport all the illegal immigrants who are here, but maybe we can make them pay fines, and there should be a crackdown on workplaces that knowingly employ and exploit undocumented workers.

Ed Morrissey:

“Being an American is not a matter of blood or birth, it’s a matter of faith,” President Obama declared at a speech he gave on immigration.

Obama also blamed “resentment” to new immigrants to poor economic conditions.

“Now, we can’t forget that this process of immigration and eventual inclusion has often been painful. Each new wave of immigrants has generated fear and resentment towards newcomers, particularly in times of economic upheaval,” Obama said.

We know what Obama meant in this passage — a similarity to those who have expressed the notion that they were Americans before ever setting foot in the US, thanks to their love of liberty.  However, the people expressing that concept came to the US through legal immigration, and didn’t presume to break our laws in order to express their desire to live in freedom.  They understood that the aspirational concept of being American and the legal status of American citizenship (or even residency) are two completely different things.

Besides, if being an American is a matter of faith, then the religion in question is devotion to the rule of law.  We have created the laws by which we live through representative democracy within a framework set by our Constitution.  Breaking the law to get into the country isn’t an expression of faith; using Obama’s construct, it’s actually heresy.

Obama and his open-borders allies attempt to blur the difference between illegal and legal immigration.  Almost no one of consequence opposes the latter.  Everyone of the “faith” of Americanism should insist on enforcing the laws against the former.  Unfortunately, this President — and many of those who have come before him — have proven rather faithless in this task.

Suzy Khimm at Mother Jones:

The cynic’s take would be that Obama’s speech was simply meant to throw a bone to Latinos in advance of the midterm election in hopes of riling up their enthusiasm for Democrats. I don’t doubt that politics played a part in terms of the timing of the address. But I also think it was meant to appease the immigration advocates who’ve been pounding down the White House’s door since the beginning of the administration. The one piece of legislation that Obama mentioned in his speech was the DREAM Act, which would provide a pathway to legalization for some illegal immigrants who finished college or served in the military. In recent months, activists have rallied around the bill, holding hunger strikes and sit-ins by illegal immigrant students. The case of Eric Balderas, the Harvard student and aspiring cancer researcher who was detained by immigration authorities, provided new political momentum for the bill.

“We should make room for ‘best and the brightest’…to contributes their talents to the country,” Obama said. “The DREAM Act would do this—which is why I supported it as a state legislator and senator, and why I continue to support this as president.” The bill clearly resonated with the other major themes of Obama’s speech: it rewards the most motivated immigrants who’ve committed themselves to a future in the US and already has bipartisan support in the Senate. Detractors argue that passing a stand-alone bill would be elitist—rewarding only those who’ve already made it to Harvard, for instance—and would sap momentum from passing a comprehensive overhaul. But given the dim chances of passing such an overhaul in the near future, Obama may be signaling a desire to go after more incremental reform measures in the meantime.

Daniel Griswold at Cato:

While the president called for comprehensive reform, he neglected to advocate the expansion of legal immigration in the future through a temporary or guest worker program for low-skilled immigrants. Even his own Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, has said such a program is the necessary “third leg” of immigration reform, the other two being legalization of undocumented workers already here and vigorous enforcement against those still operating outside the system.

As I’ve pointed out plenty of times, without accommodation for the ongoing labor needs of our country, any reform would repeat the failures of the past. In 1986, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which legalized 2.7 million workers already here illegally, while beefing up enforcement. But without a new visa program to allow more low-skilled workers to enter legally in future years, illegal immigration just began to climb again to where, two decades later, we are trying once again to solve the same problem.

On the plus side, President Obama reminded his audience of the important role immigrants play in our open and dynamic country. And he rightly linked immigration reform to securing our borders:

“[T]here are those who argue that we should not move forward with any other elements of reform until we have fully sealed our borders. But our borders are just too vast for us to be able to solve the problem only with fences and border patrols. It won’t work. Our borders will not be secure as long as our limited resources are devoted to not only stopping gangs and potential terrorists, but also the hundreds of thousands who attempt to cross each year simply to find work.

Unfortunately, given the political climate in Washington, an election looming only four months away, and the president’s unwillingness to press for an essential element of successful reform, the illegal immigration problem will still be on the agenda when a new Congress comes to town in 2011.

Gabriel Arana at Tapped:

Meanwhile, the Hispanic community remains frustrated with the pace of reform, as the situation for the 12 million undocumented immigrants in the country deteriorates. And talk, no matter what the frame, is becoming a joke. Bloggers at VivirLatino commemorated the speech with a drinking game: a shot for “reaching across the aisle,” a Jell-O shot for “nation of immigrants.” But sit it out for “secure the border.” And drink straight from the bottle for “back of the line.”

The Future Of Bipartisan Legislation Is Cloudy, With A Slight Chance Of Immigration Reform

Photo by Brendan Smialowski of Reuters

Sen. Charles Schumer and Sen. Lindsey Graham in WaPo:

Our immigration system is badly broken. Although our borders have become far more secure in recent years, too many people seeking illegal entry get through. We have no way to track whether the millions who enter the United States on valid visas each year leave when they are supposed to. And employers are burdened by a complicated system for verifying workers’ immigration status.

Last week we met with President Obama to discuss our draft framework for action on immigration. We expressed our belief that America’s security and economic well-being depend on enacting sensible immigration policies.

The answer is simple: Americans overwhelmingly oppose illegal immigration and support legal immigration. Throughout our history, immigrants have contributed to making this country more vibrant and economically dynamic. Once it is clear that in 20 years our nation will not again confront the specter of another 11 million people coming here illegally, Americans will embrace more welcoming immigration policies.

Our plan has four pillars: requiring biometric Social Security cards to ensure that illegal workers cannot get jobs; fulfilling and strengthening our commitments on border security and interior enforcement; creating a process for admitting temporary workers; and implementing a tough but fair path to legalization for those already here.

Besides border security, ending illegal immigration will also require an effective employment verification system that holds employers accountable for hiring illegal workers. A tamper-proof ID system would dramatically decrease illegal immigration, experts have said, and would reduce the government revenue lost when employers and workers here illegally fail to pay taxes.

We would require all U.S. citizens and legal immigrants who want jobs to obtain a high-tech, fraud-proof Social Security card. Each card’s unique biometric identifier would be stored only on the card; no government database would house everyone’s information. The cards would not contain any private information, medical information, nor tracking devices. The card will be a high-tech version of the Social Security card that citizens already have.

Prospective employers would be responsible for swiping the cards through a machine to confirm a person’s identity and immigration status. Employers who refused to swipe the card or who otherwise knowingly hired unauthorized workers would face stiff fines and, for repeat offenses, prison sentences.

We propose a zero-tolerance policy for gang members, smugglers, terrorists and those who commit other felonies after coming here illegally. We would bolster recent efforts to secure our borders by increasing the Border Patrol’s staffing and funding for infrastructure and technology. More personnel would be deployed to the border immediately to fill gaps in apprehension capabilities.

Spencer Hsu at WaPo:

Sens. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) announced the building blocks Thursday for a new push in Congress to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws, outlining a plan to require U.S. citizens and legal immigrants to obtain a new high-tech Social Security card tied to their fingerprints or other biometric identifiers and to create a system to bring in temporary workers as the U.S. economy demands.

The immigration “blueprint,” outlined in an editorial posted on The Washington Post’s Web site, drew an immediate vow of support from President Obama, who urged Congress “to act at the earliest possible opportunity.”

“I . . . pledge to do everything in my power to forge a bipartisan consensus on this important issue so we can continue to move forward on comprehensive immigration reform,” Obama said in a statement released by the White House. Obama congratulated Schumer and Graham on what he called “a promising, bipartisan framework which can and should be the basis for moving forward.”

In the editorial, Graham and Schumer shied away from details, and did not say when they would produce a bill.

Advocates set an April deadline, but that would require additional Republican support. Schumer and Graham asked Obama at a Tuesday meeting to help in coming days, according to a source familiar with talks.

Chris Lawrence:

There isn’t anything terribly original here; Hsu points out that most of these elements were part of the failed comprehensive proposals under the Bush administration as well, which were eventually abandoned in favor of stricter enforcement and building both a virtual (and bug-ridden) and real fence along the border; while perhaps rhetorically appealing to some on both sides of the aisle, neither solution was likely to have any real effect on the informal economy or most of the millions of illegal aliens already in the United States.

But in the run-up to a midterm election where many Democrats in marginal seats are already running scared of Obamacare and likely facing Tea Party-energized Republicans and independents, scaring up enough votes for the Schumer-Graham plan in both chambers of Congress will be a serious challenge. With a biometric social security card that looks suspiciously like a mandatory national ID card (at the moment, the social security card is an optional form of ID for people who can prove the right to work with a citizenship document), a “path to legalization” that strongly resembles the paths in the past that were spun by opponents as “amnesty,” and a guest worker system that working-class union members and non-union employees alike probably fear will amount to “foreigners stealing American jobs,” the bill’s chances of passage in any form, particularly before November, seem very slim.

Mark Krikorian at The Corner:

Hey, I thought to myself, maybe they’ve resolved some of the disputes among the various pro-amnesty factions that had been delaying the presentation of a bill. Eagerly anticipating some new development or formulation I made the time to read the op-ed all the way through.

Nothing.

No specifics whatsoever. I thought I was reading an op-ed from 2001 (or 2002 or 2003 or 2004 or…). It’s just the same grand bargain of amnesty and increased immigration in exchange for promises of future enforcement (their version includes a biometric national ID card), without any details about how legalization would work or how many indentured servants would be provided to cheap-labor employers each year. It’s not clear why the Post even agreed to publish the piece, other than it seemed salient in anticipation of Sunday’s illegal-alien-palooza on the Mall. Until labor agrees to support an indentured labor program for “temporary” workers, business isn’t going to back any bill and nothing’s going to move. Wake me when something happens.

Andrea Nill at Think Progress:

Earlier this week, the Houston Chronicle reported that Texas clergy members were meeting with Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) that they would “have his back if he risks becoming a target of that anger by helping craft and pass comprehensive immigration reform.” Cornyn responded by punting on the issue and saying that it is up to President Obama to lead. Members of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) responded urging its 30,000 members to flood Cornyn’s phone lines “asking Senator Cornyn to turn down Obama, Graham, Schumer and McCain’s requests for him to support comprehensive immigration reform amnesty.” Today, ALIPAC patted itself on the back and took credit for Cornyn stating “I do not and will not support amnesty” after the calls were made.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-TX) has indicated that he will not go forward with the comprehensive immigration reform bill that he is working on with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) if they cannot find another Republican co-sponsor. Given that fact, if ALIPAC did succeed in bullying Cornyn out of supporting an effort that a majority of the American people want to see, ALIPAC can also credit itself with bringing the nation another step farther away from fixing the nation’s broken immigration sytem.

Chances are it’s more complicated than that. To begin with, Schumer and Graham aren’t proposing simply pardoning 12 million unauthorized immigrants and overlooking the fact that they have broken the law by entering and most likely working in the country without proper documentation, as the term “amnesty” implies. Schumer and Graham have proposed putting undocumented immigrants on an “earned path to legalization” that would involve paying a fine, registering with the government, learning English, and undergoing a background check. It’s possible that Cornyn is against “amnesty,” but is open to the approach that Schumer and Graham have put forth.

What’s more likely is that Cornyn is simply playing politics with the White House. Cornyn has repeatedly said he is willing to work on comprehensive immigration reform, but that it’s up to President Obama to lead

Jonathan Weiseman at WSJ:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who is currently trying to help President Barack Obama out of the thickets of immigration, Guantanamo Bay and climate change, showed his claws Friday, declaring he’ll drop out of negotiations on a comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws if health care passes.

“The first casualty of the Democratic health care bill will be immigration reform. If the health care bill goes through this weekend, that will, in my view, pretty much kill any chance of immigration reform passing the Senate this year,” Graham said in a statement blast-emailed to the Washington press corps. Just this morning, Graham and Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) had an op-ed in the Washington Post touting a bipartisan immigration overhaul. “The American people deserve more than empty rhetoric and impractical calls for mass deportation,” the two lawmakers wrote. “We urge the public and our colleagues to join our bipartisan efforts in enacting these reforms.”

An immigration bill was a long shot anyway, and even long-shot status is probably too generous. The negotiations on closing Guantanamo in exchange for Democratic concessions on detaining and trying terrorism suspects are far closer to fruition. Still, in a deeply polarized Washington, Graham understands he holds most of the cards in the talks.

Gabriel Arana at The American Prospect:

Yesterday’s major immigration-reform demonstration on the National Mall took a back seat to the eleventh-hour wrangling over health care in the House of Representatives – and the histrionics of the much smaller Tea Party crowd yelling racial and homophobic slurs at members of Congress. That seemed to underscore the very reason the pro-immigration crowd is so frustrated: Despite having promised to make immigration reform a “top priority” in his first year, Obama’s efforts have been concentrated on health care. But the demonstrators drew a line in the sand. Speaker after speaker said the immigrant community would “hold Obama accountable.” Nydia M. Velázquez, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, told the crowd that they should tell lawmakers “that you will not forget which side of this debate they stood on.” Others threatened not to support Democrats in the midterm elections if there was no movement.

If the Schumer-Graham blueprint is any indication, bi-partisan momentum is building toward a major overhaul of the immigration system, but how likely are we to see a bill proposed and passed this year? Despite grass-roots enthusiasm, there is reason for cynicism: We’ve been here many times before. Even with bipartisan support – and sometimes even sponsorship from members of both parties – comprehensive immigration reform failed in 2005, 2006, and 2007. The most recent failed proposal, the 2007 “Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform Act,” was supported by President Bush and included provisions sought by Republicans (increased enforcement) and Democrats (a path to legalization for the 12 million undocumented immigrants in the country). A cloture vote came up short in the Senate, killing the bill.

The real hurdle for immigration reform is the question of whether undocumented immigrants who are already here should be given amnesty. In anticipation of an amnesty battle, the right is sounding the alarm:

The bill doesn’t have a prayer, because the American people oppose rewarding lawbreakers, which then encourages illegal immigration … Allowing millions of illegal immigrants to stay and take jobs away from citizens is like giving a burglar a key to the house. Illegal immigrants should return home and play by the rules like millions of legal immigrants. — Rep. Lamar Smith, top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, to the Washington Times

This entire situation is analogous to the immigration of destitute Goth masses across the Danube river into the Roman Empire, which began with the permission of the Emperor in about 376 A.D. Thirty-four years later King Alaric and the Visi-Goths over-ran and sacked the City of Rome, itself. Eventually, the collapse of that empire ushered in the Dark Ages. … This nation may very well fall in a much more civilized way, without a shot being fired. — John Work at David Horowitz’s Newsreel

If this immigration amnesty proposal is successful, America, this great beacon of freedom in the world, will be turned into a communist, third world, multi-lingual, dumbed down, uneducated mass of humanity that can more easily be controlled and manipulated by their new Masters, the new American politburo and the old establishment oligarchy. — John Wallace at Right Side News

The comparison to burglars, the stock analogy to Rome (let’s face it, what hasn’t been blamed for bringing down the empire?), and the suggestion that providing a path to citizenship for undocumented workers will “dumb the country” down are either amusingly hyperbolic or just plain offensive, but they show the sort of resistance from the right that supporters of immigration reform are up against. I am not optimistic that any immigration reform plan that includes a path to citizenship will have a filibuster-proof chance this year given the partisan rancor left in health care’s wake, the increasing radicalism among Republicans, and Democrats’ fatigue after a bruising fight.