What Just Happened:
Something huge for the blogosphere. Every time in the past the Right Blogosphere has opposed a Bush policy or other action, GWB has found a graceful way to lose without officially doing so. On SCOTUS appointments, blogospherean opposition led to Alberto Gonzales not being nominated in the first place, and Harriet Miers “withdrawing” her nomination. On the Ports Dubai mess, Bush never backed down, but for some reason Ports Dubai “agreed to withdraw their purchase of US ports” (through a complicated buy-sell arrangement). On the initial attempt at an immigration amnesty through the House, the blogosphere notched a win, but GWB hadn’t staked his entire roll on the bet. Everybody knew the house defeat was only Round One, and that Shamnesty Would Rise Again, especially given that Democrats had taken control of the Senate after the 2006 elections.
But this was the full power, majesty, and bribing, arm-twisting immensity of the entire Bush Administration, led by the Commander in Chimp himself, to orchestrate a carefully crafted attempt to ram through the Senate an amnesty/open borders bill for reasons known only to Bush himself. Not only that, he allied himself with the Democratic leadership of the Senate, and the crafty old fox, Teddy Kennedy, to grease the skids. And finally, he had the full support of the liberal mainstream media, and the entire panoply of liberal goo-goo organizations from CAIR to ACLU to the Academy-Think Tank complex going to the mat for him as well.
Against this fearsome, supposedly irresistible array? A few conservative media/journalism outlets, especially the heroic National Review Gang [and double especially, Kathryn Lopez] - (but not Fox, which took a dive for amnesty), the conservative talk radio spectrum, and…the Right Blogosphere. (And significant portions of the Left Blogosphere as well, although not as passionately).
In the end, the underdogs crushed the Bush Amnesty, and in the process, came of age as a true power player on the national political scene. Of course many contributed: Conservative think tanks generated reports and analysis, and the righty talkers mobilized their millions of listeners. But in the middle was something new: the Blogosphere, which reacted to every Bush attempt with speed and ferocity never seen before in American politics. The bill was subjected to a merciless spotlight within hours of its release, so merciless that it became impossible for Senators to follow their usual procedure and vote for it sight unseen.
The talkers became, essentially, a megaphone for the work done at lightning speed in the blogosphere. Everybody you listened to was saying things like, “I saw on NRO,” or “the Powerline guys are reporting,” or “Michelle Malkin just posted,” or “Mickey Kaus said,” or “you can search the bill yourself at N.Z. Bear’s blog,” as well as passing mention of dozens of other blogs, or analysis obviously generated in the blogosphere. We gave them everything: speed, accuracy, analysis, information resources, encouragement, any and everything the talkers could possibly need or use to mobilize and engage their massive listening audiences. And we did it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from the start of this battle to the finish.
And Bush never wavered. Nobody withdrew anything, nobody made any real concessions. Bush staked his power and reputation on his ability to shut down the power of the blogs and the talkers, and he failed. Not only did he fail, he failed miserably. It was a naked, bare-knuckles slugging match, and we knocked him out cold.
Without the blogosphere, the talkers would have still been clearing their throats when Bush, Reid, McCain, Kennedy, and Graham presented them with a fait accompli.
What Does It Mean?
It means we’re in the big leagues now, and it means that other players must now regard us as equals, and potentially dangerous. We’ve been growing toward this for some time, but now we’ve arrived. We took everything the entrenched powers of Washington could throw at us, and we beat them.
Which means the entrenched powers are no longer going to be looking at us as an interesting toy. They are going to look at us as potential allies and enemies. And if we are enemies, then they will try to destroy us. We made a lot of enemies in this fight. They won’t forget. Neither should we.
What Comes Next?
We need to make good on our promises. John McCain’s presidential run needs to be stopped now, and his political career ended as far as any relevance henceforth. The same for Lindsey Graham. He’s running for re-election in 2008. He called us bigots, idiots, and worse. He needs to either be defeated in the primaries, or defeated in the general election. If he is the candidate, he shouldn’t be able to raise one thin dime from Republicans. I want to see Jim DeMint replace Mitch McConnell as Minority Leader, and become Majority Leader after the 2008 election. Finally, Trent Lott must pay a price. We drove him from the leadership once. We can do so again, and we should. We need to do everything we can to see to that. Half of being effective in politics is the ability to reward our friends. The other half is being able to punish our enemies. We need to take care of both sorts of business.
We will be attacked now. Look for a coalition of liberals, disgruntled RINOS, entrenched pork-meisters, and an enraged Administration to start making noises about a new Fairness Doctrine. But keep in mind that we have arrived as a power, and so, although we will have enemies, we will also have those who wish to be our friends. We must use not just our already-demonstrated power to defend ourselves, but to enable our would-be friends to fight for, and with, us as well.
The Unintended Consequence:
We may not hear of it openly, but I think Mickey Kaus’ call for attack videos, and the devastatingly immediate response, changed the entire equation. One of the things that the permanent government liked very much about the McCain Feingold Incumbent Protection Act was that it protected them from tv hit pieces in the final sixty days before the election. Political pros know that the majority of voters barely tune into elections until the last thirty days. They also know how much damage a well-timed tv hit piece can do to a candidate when it crops up a week before the balloting, with no time to put your own creative people, agencies, video makers, message meisters, and so on, to work on crafting an effective response.
But these pros have always regarded the effective hit piece as the province of a heavily financed operation - one with focus group and full high-tech message crafting capabilities. In other words, the enemy (which they thought McCain Feingold muzzled) were other groups with resources comparable in some part to their own.
Imagine their horror to find themselves viewing devastating attack videos created within hours of Kaus’ call for them and, worse, those same videos immediately available everywhere in their home districts, ready for viewing by anybody with a computer and a video connection.
I think both sides learned something new about our capabilities today. We learned that we have the ability to take control of the video conversation on a moment’s notice, and do so with an effectiveness that matches anything they can field with their millions of dollars of media and technology wizards. An An Army of Davids
They learned it, too. They also learned that their only hope of countering such capability has to come from the same blogospherean resources. And those who can’t adapt to that truth will probably die. The blogosphere is real. It has a sting. And that sting can be fatal to a politician’s hopes of staying in power or wielding power once in office.
There is a myth floating around that 2004 was the first “internet” election. But that’s an erroneous analysis, or at least an irrelevant one. The internet is a medium, but it isn’t a message. The message - at least as far as US politics goes - is provided via the internet by the blogosphere. And so, far more meaningful in every way, 2008 will be the first true blogosphere election.
I can’t wait.
UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Always a pleasure to have Glenn’s folks drop in.
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spot on analysis bill. also, watch for the soup grape specialist to squash any meaningful future attempts at real immigration reform.
I’m hoping the tack I’m taking as a gun blogger starts working the same as well. If you read the Brady Campaign’s blog (and you should), you’ll see they get no quarter from us ‘gunnies’ when it comes to their lies and deceit. The big advantage to being a Second Amendment supporter is that I don’t need to lie to prove my point.
However, back to the topic at hand. I woke up so depressed this morning. All I knew was that some phone systems literally shut down with the traffic and it was practically 100% against amnesty. And yet I thought they’d pass it nonetheless, disregarding their constituents.
I’m thrilled that I was wrong.
Remember though, the left-o-sphere has the same power, and greater numbers (they have a lot of younger idealists), not to mention a lot more yapping. I don’t think they personally can win on logic alone, but their attack machines aren’t something to be scoffed at.
What I truly love though is that the interconnectedness of America has a chance to truly change politics. No longer can politicians hide or send past actions down the memory hole. Google is forever. And with the slightest nudge, we can overload a senator’s or congressman’s office with protests. And that fear of doing anything wrong might start making them scared to do anything at all.
And that’s the best kind of representative I could ever hope for.
Great article. I have an alternate theory - that GWB didn’t really want the measure to pass. His actions were virtually indistinguishable from someone going through the motions.
So if my premise is true, what does it mean? It means he succeeded at destroying a legislative initiative that the Dems might have used to build a “permanent” Democrat majority. It means there are polls that show hugging Mexico is vastly unpopular and won’t be revisited soon. It means Ted Kennedy’s bill dies an ugly death. (If only that had been the fate of another of Ted’s bills - No Child Left Behind). It means the conservative grassroots has found its voice. All of these things are good. And if now you agree with my premise, then these things are very good indeed. Even crafty.
I think you may have been at your namesake a bit too much. Did you think the Iraqi invasion was a Bush ploy to destroy the UN, too?
Seriously, I can understand why you might wish your analysis to be correct, but I really can’t see any merit to it.
I think this post is one of your best masterpieces.
Robb, I really don’t think that it matters that lefties have the same power; I actually think that it is good. It isn’t just the yapping that did it; it is the FACTS that did it. Lefties have for a long time simply yapped, and the rationally ignorant have in the absence of countering information accepted the lies as fact. Lefties act as pitchers throwing up false arguments that those with the facts can smack out of the park. Finally, if there are times when the lefties are correct, then I’m all in favor of listening.
Bill,
Great piece!
Of course you’re right that McFiengold was aimed to protect the political class from exposure at a critcal point in the election cycle. The importance of this legislation (other than its stated purpose) was 2-fold:
1) it neon-ed the true agenda of a majority of the political class.
2) it was the 1st kabuki-theater moment. I can well remember pointing out to any who’d listen - incl Rush telling me not to worry, ‘GWB has promised to veto the bill unless it adresses xy&z, which it doesn’t … and besided I’m very confident the Supreme Court will find it unconstitutional…’ We did get that disgusting law, and I “fell out of love” w/GWD when he signed it.
The point of the above is that Bill’s right: the political class will be after our heads, but they probably won’t be honest about it.
One way they’re sure to come after us, (since it kills 2 birds w/one stone) is via taxation. I remember that Jefferson said that the power to tax is the power to destroy. They’ll go after Talk Radio as the organizers and blogs as the foot-troops/well of creativity.
Folks, this is only round 1, and we’re going to have to be operating in paranoid mode for years to come…
quote:
Lord of LightZelazny:
“Yama: Binder! You fool! You shouldn’t have shown them you could do that… only mock a god after they’re defeated…”
- martin.musculus
folk:
please forgive the formatting problems (and “besided” in stead of “besides” in my paraphrase) in my last post. I’m not at home & I’m accessing the web via my Lifedirive. This means: (1) no spell checker (2) tiny input window/editor with only a small buffer.
Thanks for understanding!
- martin.musculus
And this will put “conservatives/pubbies” in perpetual minority status.
Only because we’re too stupid on the PR.
Even Bernie the Socialist voted against it.
McConnell should acknowledge that the American public doesn’t like backroom deals rammed thru, understandibly wants the borders secured and how could people not agree after 9/11, and start putting together a good bill.
Medved and Bros Judd are not happy.
Conservatives were in the minority most of my life, as long as they can check the worst of the commies, we’ll maintain.
No time for too much patting ourselves on the back, now the work begins.
Fred.
Hysterical horseshit. Hispanics are not the swing vote in American politics. Nor will they be.
Phooey. I’m whipped. I’ve put up at least a hundred immigration posts in this brawl, and I’m going to spend the holiday break with my feet up, a beverage in my hand, and a smile on my face.
Basking in victory.
Then, yes. Fred.
Yea, when I heard the news today, I let out a big sigh of relief, pulled the ear buds out, walked the 7′ to the Atlantic and dove in to wash away the rhetoric! Refreshed to fight another day — Energy Bill anyone?
Bill, don’t turn on Fox, where Fred Barnes and Mort Kondracke are referring to Lindsey Graham as a “profile in courage” for standing up to the racists in the “Tancredo Gang”.
Actually, I suspect that people who wrote to Senators and put up commentary with their e-mail addresses displayed are going to be subject to employment retaliation at some point. There are already several examples of that in the blogosphere (Kim’s gun blog, forex), and there will be more. But, hey, no one said standing for something was free.
I agree that blogs can be politically powerful but part of the equation is the lopsided poll numbers on amnesty/immigration reform. There won’t be many issues where the American electorate is as united as they are on border security.
DRJ, you have it exactly backwards. We are the ones who created those lopsided poll numbers. Before the blogosphere got busy exposing their cooked polls and slanted questions, all you saw were polls showing majorities in favor of the bill. The tide didn’t turn until we eviscerated the damned thing and spilled its guts all over the internet for everybody to see.
We’re also the ones who turned the conservative talker tide. Rush, Sean, and most of the others were reluctant to throw their full weight against the President they had helped to elect. We showed them they were going to be left in the dust by their own audience if they didn’t follow our lead.
Not to rain on the parade, but I’ve heard rhetoric like this before… “It’s our party, we bought it, and we’re taking it over”. The message might not get delivered without the messenger, but don’t make the Kos mistake of thinking that the messenger is more important.
That said, this is the best we could have expected from this abomination of a backroom deal. Keep it up.
One thing that I definitely take away from all of this is the sheer hypocrasy that our leaders are saying how much they want us to vote and to participate, and then when the American people actually do just that, they get called bigots or try to shut us out of the actual conversation (i.e. Fairness Doctrine). If it’s so important to the Democrats that the government base our Iraq policy based on what the majority of Americans want today, then why don’t they follow the same standard on an issue like preventing future illegal immigration?
Bill,
I agree with this post, but I wouldn’t characterize this as a blowout victory. I think it was a lot closer than that as many Senators didn’t figure out the danger of voting for the Grand Bargain until literally the last 36 hours. But you’re right that the tide turned definitively in the past 3-4 days and that momentum was pretty incredible.
I’d also characterize this as the first of several more battles before politicians of all stripes fully understand how to handle large numbers of citizens on the internet. It might be ugly for a while. And it won’t be until some politicians who plays it straight with the internet starts leading the way. If we are lucky, that is the next president. But more likely we just got a taste of what the next 6 years will be like.
Excellent analysis. A few thoughts.
1. The blogosphere/new media took down Bush - a President of such poor communicative skills that he has been unable to properly deal with the likes of International A.N.S.W.E.R and CAIR. Yes, a win, but not a win against a particularly stout opponent. If this had been Clinton in his prime I’m not sure we’d have won.
2. The weight of the blogosphere/new media alone did not carry the day. The fact that these new voices were reinforcing the quietly held opinions of a vast majority of the population was the real threat. Without the new mediums the majority would have remained largely unaware of their shared opinions and therefore largely silent and probably blithely accepted the fait accompli as in the past.
Thankfully those days appear numbered.
Once it became apparent that the politicians were blatantly and willingly acting against the wishes of their constituency the game was up. BUT, even then, and even with 70+ percent disapproval too many of those politicians were still willing to make it a close thing. I’ll chalk a fair bit of that up to old dogs not seeing the paradigm shift (please accept my humble apology for use of that term.)
All this means that, while the blogosphere/new media is now an offical player, it is only a significant player so long as it’s interests closely track those of a large majority of the population. Lose the mass of silent/tacit support that comes when your message truly resonates with large numbers of otherwise passive individuals and we are back to being voices howling in the wilderness.
Blatant linktroll: Posted a few thoughts here: Welcome to Boston, Senators. Have some tea!.
An outstanding article and “Hits the Nail on the Head!” Hopefully there will be many more victories in the future for “The People!”
Thank You,
Mike
Overland Park, Ks.
To a large extent, I agree. But any victory at all was a blowout. As I pointed out, absent the blogosphere, the talkers and the conservative MSM would still have been clearing their throats and sharpening their pencils long after GWB and Friends presented them with the original bill as a fait accompli.
As for the final count, it was indeed inflated by last-moment bandwagoneers like Sam Switchback. Still, I think even without them, it wouldn’t have been exactly a squeaker. I sent Mike Hendrix of Cold Fury an email on the afternoon of June 25 predicting that we might get close to 50 votes against cloture. I was thinking about the next day, but it works for the second cloture attempt as well.
Thanks to all who worked so hard to bring the truth to light.. You are right that the power came from revealing the truth and letting citizens decide based on facts rather than slant what is in the best interests of this country. It is not a matter of liberal/conservative.
It is a matter of truth, analysis, values and it is wonderful to have a venue where “we the people” can gather to figure things out, discuss, reveal and share.. then take our decisions to our elected leaders. I emailed politicians and editors, reporters, talk show hosts, writers and voting friends relentlessly on this issue. Some of you might call me a “liberal” based on SOME of my views. But, you might be pleasantly surprised by the common sense that even a liberal has about some obvious things! It is so exciting to have the immediacy, intellectual resources and committment that so many of you are bringing to all of our political efforts. I agree that many in office are still unaware.. obviously many of them are still computer-illterate, much less out of touch with all that is here now.
May the best thinking prevail, may our government be brought out of darkness into light and transparency. Keep the pressure ON!
Bill:
Good Piece. I would only suggest that the only real solution is for the electorate to impose term limits on legislators. The goal should be to pick good conservatives to run against anyone looking for a 3rd (or higher) term in the Senate or a sixth (or higher) term in the House. This fight just proved that its the Incumbocrats against Americans. We don’t need a constitutional amendment, just vote them out.
“The medium is the massage.”
Marshall McLuhan
What’s Next?
There is something happening here and I’m not sure what it is. In the flush of victory it is easy to misread events. I hope you are right. As I write this Mike Pence is on the radio calling on Michael Savage and others to mobilize the electorate in support of a bill he introduced today to permanently prohibit the FCC from instituting the fairness doctrine. Let’s see the blogosphere get behind this and get it passed in the House of Representatives. I would also like to see their four grand pay raise defeated, but most of all, the best test would be to turn government policy towards a true victory over our mortal enemies. That trumps everything. Our brothers and sisters give all daily for liberty while our national policy only insures that this sacrifice will continue unabated.
One minute. On McConnell, there’s a possibility he deliberately helped this alll play out, stringing McCain and Graham (who he can’t like much), Kennedy and Reid along, letting them think they could get cloture (while holding out votes, including his own), both forcing them and agreeing to let them to play games with the rules, which added outrage over procedural trickery to opposition to the bill. Consider the opposite strategy, which is all out opposition from the beginning. In this alternative, the issue becomes less an intra-Repulican fight and more inter-party, encouraging the Democrats (in the Senate and the electorate) to close ranks for cloture, and making it easier for McCain and Graham to round up a few of the usual RINO suspects, who always like to stand in the bi-partisan middle, for another “Gang of 14″ (this time the “Grand Bargainers”). Am I sure? No. But, answer me this: why else was McConnell no where to be seen throughout? Think about it.
The law of unintended (but in this case actually good) consequences - the msm etc may decide that since it can’t control the internet that McCain-Feingold was a mistake after all - it limits their “friends’” ability to control the debate during the crucial period leading up to the election, and the vacumn is being filled by the internet, not their gruesome editorializing of the news.
Excellent piece.
You are right on so many fronts.
While the Washington establishment blames talk radio, it was really the internet that made this happen. Blogs showed us how to ask for our money back from the Republican fundraisers. Believe me, word travels fast when that starts happening. It was the blogs that gave out the key legislators’ phone numbers and we melted down the Senate’s phone system. My e-mails to my Senators got fast acknowledgments 3 weeks ago, but none in this past week–a sign of a massive overload. And it was the blogs that exposed the phoniness of the bill.
In my opinion, there have been three seminal events in the internet’s rise to power.
First was Drudge’s expose of Newsweek’s spiking the Monica Lewinsky story. He exposed MSM’s incredible bias of hiding what might hurt Democrats.
Second was the Rathergate story. It was lightning fast technical analysis and rebuttals that proved the sham that Rather’s story was. We succeeded in getting the most entrenched of the biased of the network anchors fired.
And finally it was the Immigration Shamnesty, for all the reasons you describe. This truly is the internet’s finest hour.
An additional thought on this Bill. I agree that blogs were a significant, major player, but talk radio still brings something to the process. Blogs are able to drive the issue 24 hours a day, and they are able to perform analysis viewing the issue from all facets and ultimately honing the truth to razor sharpness. Talk radio however provides new input to the discussion via interviews with the significant players. This isn’t confined to the syndicated names such as Rush, Hannity, etc. who have all too often needed influencing to get in line, but it includes the local talk hosts whose initial position many times align more closely with the truth. This new input is then picked up and put into the blogosphere where its breadth and depth of knowledge can analyze the new data providing the direction for the next round of questioning by the talkers.
I wouldn’t say that it was a spontaneous thing, like the rightwing blogosphere sent out the word and that stopped the immigration bill in its tracks. I think that right wing ideologues and blogs have been spreading an ideology opposed to illegal immigration. This has been done with Fox News, right wing news papers and blogs. This has made people very interested in the bill and helped to mobilize them to put pressure on their politicians to stop the bill.
——
My political forum
I don’t know about this. A revolution it is indeed, and non-violent so far, but a random and unguided one. It could be the next American Revolution… or it could be the next French Revolution, if the Army of Davids turn to the communication-stifling tactics of the left side of the blogosphere.
What’s next?
1) So far the victory is incomplete.
We need to defeat everyone of the RINOs who’s voted for the amnesty
in the next reelection cycle, and certainly next year. This topic has to be on the front burner from now on.
2) Kaus’s call for the attack ads should become a new MO of the citizenry, exposing all kinds of the Incumbestan’s shenangians.
3) We need to provide a megaphone for the handful of decent legislators in Washington, such as senator Coburn. This could also serve as a layer of insulation against possible attacks by the political scam.
4) We need to adopt, as a matter of routine, the name
“a political swindler” for any politician
reneging on his campaign pledges.
…well…talk radio certainly helped.
There’s 203 million Americans online today, kiddies. 70% of us get some or all of news and info from the WWW.
Believe it or not, most of us are looking for the facts.
We have laptops, iPods, camera-phones and pretty decent still and video cameras. iPhones are next. Websites and blogs are so cheap that almost anyone can have one. Posting pretty good video or stills that we took - all by ourselves - is getting easier every day. Facebook, YouTube, Digg, Twitter, Delicious…that whole list just goes on and on and on…
Regulate the airwaves? Too late. Regulate the ‘net via net neutrality? It is still too late. More than one billion people are now online around the world. Another one to two billion more will join us by the year 2015. Most of us will be looking for the facts and the truth…not the imposition of someone else’s ideology - and agenda - upon our sensibilities.
Think about it for a bit. Let the full implications sink in…
Send AlGore a thank you card for inventing that internet thingy, will ya?
I made the “attack ad” with Willie Nelson’s “Blue Eyes Cryin’” as its soundtrack (over 6000 saw it so I assume at least some of those who read this will be among them) so this seems like a good place to talk about these things. (It’s here if you haven’t seen it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJdITx4ztLk
I’m in advertising so the idea of doing a punchy, 30-second spot (actually I cheated by 2 seconds) was far from alien to me. I picked the tax angle because that was one of the things that really rankled me– I’m far from anti-immigrant but I’m very much against the idea of encouraging an off the books immigrant economy which will screw both them (paying below minimum wage etc.) and me (when I pay taxes and they don’t and they get social services in part because they’re getting so screwed on wages). I aimed it at Lindsey Graham, and put in a diverse mix of celebrities, precisely to fire back at his ignorant comment about bigots being against the immigration bill, and because I knew it would be more effective if it targeted a single senator.
And then I sat down at Final Cut Pro, Googled some images and captured 30 seconds of a song off Amazon– and in 40 minutes I had an attack ad, total cost $0.00.
Do I think it hugely influenced people? 6000 people seeing it is next to nothing by broadcast TV standards. But on the other hand, unlike with TV, these people saw it on purpose. They clicked and watched. And beyond that, it makes our discontent so much more real if we’re not just interchangeable voters calling up on the phone (and Lindsey Graham could care less about a voter in Chicago) but can be seen to have media savvy and the potential to reach vast numbers. It may only have reached 6000, but I’m convinced that at least a few of those were staffers in DC experiencing significant sphincter contraction.
Now, there’s a lot of ways this kind of grassroots video campaigning can get better. I’m not convinced that imitating TV’s models (30 second spots) is the best choice– a lot of the attack ads people did played like amateur versions of crappy models to begin with, the scary voice and all that. The real breakthrough will be when we invent new models, when we do 10-minute documentaries and things like Bloggingheads and who knows what. The next campaign like this should have lots of different kinds of video, not just fake ads. But all that will come. This is only the first of its kind, and many more will follow.
Political Forum, I believe that you just spewed the same old tripe that has been spewing from the mouths of Sen. Graham and Kennedy and their ilk. I don’t need a blogosphere to give me an opinion. The blogosphere provides a gathering place to discuss issues where bullshit can be exposed for what it is and then effortlessly discarded.
You miss the point. The problem isn’t isn’t alienated minorities, it’s the incredibly pissed off majority that didn’t want a damn thing to do with this bill. The attempt to pass it alone is an insult.
Bill, this is only a temp win for us. The people in power always get the last laugh over us small people. Like Dick Morris said on Fox News tonight. The Dems will win in 2008 and Hillary will be President. They will bring an even weaker bill to the floor and it will pass. In the meantime, the border won’t be secured and the illegals will continue to come in. We are screwed no matter what. This is like a baseball team winning their first game of the season and celebrating with 161 games left.
A tremendous and earned victory. Let’s not forget our manners. Be sure and send :thank you: notes to the Senators who saw the light. I’m composing ones for Warner and Webb right now. A small check wouldn’t hurt either to show some value in listening to the hoi polloi.
Time to organize?
Dick Morris is not God. He is not even a god. He has political knowledge but is wrong more than he is right. Hispanics are a more diverse group than people understand. They do not vote in large numbers. The myth that they do is what currently propels politicians to coddle to them. Real America, the true voters showed its power the last two weeks and especially Thursday 6-28-07. politicians running in 08; be afraid, BE VERY AFRAID!
Bill, you inquired as to who wanted this bill to pass?
Very simply, much of the business class, those who contribute the dollars to the campaign coffers of both parties.
At work for the last few days the web access restrictions were much more stringent than usual, with all emails to .gov sites completely blocked, and several sites normally accessible blocked using the old standby of “hate speech”.
Other contractors that I talk with said that they completely lost net access while this was going on.
Reading the NYC papers today is going to be fun; I wonder if the open borders columnists had strokes overnight?
they wanted to get this passed real bad. i’m wondering if were going to see commercials along the lines of: have you been fired and replaced by illegal labor call the law officies of…….
Myself (an independent but really a conservative except on some selected social issues) and my political friends (3 Dem liberals, 2 greenies, 2 disheartened libbies, and a single token repub) all hated the immigration bill as best as we could follow it. None of us could believe that our leaders were so out of touch.
The blogs (lefty and righty) seriously helped sort out enough of the details for us and since these were info sources that different political viewpoints trusted, the amount of agreement about the basic bill facts was amazing. The various Big Media outlets just fell flat after reading the blogs, sounding like cheerleaders that were refusing to address the actual problems with the bill.
Our agreement that this bill sucked not the norm for us in political discussions. We all noticed that it was different this time as say compared to other topics were we can not agree about basic facts & thus endlessly (and happily) argue (e.g. state of the current economy god, ok, or bad?).
It was a nice moment really to have ourselves united instead of divided even if it was in disgust.
And to further this blog’s post’s point about the blogsphere’s rise to power my last two (politically minded) friends who did think the political blogs were worth reading have now changed their minds; the reading time for the LOL cat blogs is going to be reduced.
RBR
(from Instapundit link)
Even NFIB, which is usually far more conservative than NAM, Chamber of Commerce, or Business Roundtable, was behind the bill.
A friend of mine who gets offers for work to be done out of the US told me that he’s been deluged this morning by offshore companies noting the lower cost of foreign labor, with comments noting the failure of the Amnesty bill.
Indonesian engineers for $10/day are among the bargains being offered as opposed to overpriced Americans.
Persoanlly, I’m largely come around to the Lou Dobbs/Pat Buchanan camp, as far as labor is concerned.
Bill,
It’s good to see such an upbeat post. I agree with pretty much everything that you said. However, I would emphasize the fact our self-styled overlords in DC won’t take kindly to us little folks speaking out. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see some sort of sideways legislation that ends up reducing the number of YouTube attack ads. After all, it cannot be endured that the voters should have a voice.
Cynicism aside, I’m politically pleased for the first time in a long while.
It was Bush who was causing so much illegal immigration to cross the border to begin with:
How Bush Caused It
Let’s leave the “commander in chimp” references to the lefties. Even when we disagree with the president, the office deserves respect.
John, (he said gently) the man is not the office. Believing otherwise is half the problem with our Imperial Presidents. Allow me also to note I am not a Republican. Allow me further to note that I despise Bush the man, who happens to be president solely because of circumstances the first time, and the nomination of a candidate even more hapless than he a second time.
Finally, I actually hadn’t even noticed. I think I intended to write “Commander in Chief.” The Chimp insertion is probably some sort of Freudian slip, based on the utter contempt in which I hold the club-tongued leadership fraud currently in residence at 1600 Pennsylvania.
The Management regrets (mildly) the slip.
I can’t help but wonder if this was a feint.
I look at the posturing about the Fairness Doctine and it seems to me that this one thing–the ability to silence the right–is far more important to the libs than helping
‘brown’ people.
They’ll be able to gather Republican support–from RINOs to malfunctioning conservatives whose misplaced support for CIR was thwarted by the blogosphere and talk-radio.
And that item that passed that’ll forbid the FCC from allocating money to the pursuit of bringing back the Fairness Doctrine is easily avoided–if they don’t call it the fairness doctrine. Call it the ‘Balance in Media Act’
And expand it. Include the net. Think they won’t try? Think they won’t get help? How many people in government would prefer not to hear your pesky opinions?
And how many Republicans are fool enough not to realise that balance does not, and will never, extend to getting rid of leftist bias–be it in the media named in the act, or any other?
Is it a victory? Or have we taken a queen and left ourselves open to checkmate?
Short answer: no.
Long answer: you don’t understand how politics works. The blogosphere actually made itself more safe by demonstrating power. Politicians are timid creatures, and one of the first lessons they learn is “Don’t stick your head into a proven buzz-saw.”
More likely, they’ll try to make alliances with us, or coopt us.
To not engage would have been to cede the battlefield to the enemy. They are Legion, and they have been able for a long time to employ many tactics against us. No matter. The issue of immigration reform HAD to be addressed, because adoption of this measure would have fundamentally changed “who” we are; it’s adoption by this means would have fundamentally changed the concept of American government and liberty. It is much more akin to Lexington and Concord….the beginning of the beginning, but a beginning even so. Yes, they’ll trot out new methods, and we’ll have to remain vigilant against them. No matter; the battle is joined, and I’m exhilarated. Thanks, Bill.
Jack, I agree with Bill on the short answer. The problem with the Internet is that any US based “fairness” doctrine will simply create an overseas market for server hosting of conservative blogs. “Fairness” doctrines never touched overseas media, but at that time the only thing overseas that could hit the US was shortwave. Not anymore.
Well Fred, if you are looking for your next battle, then I’d go no further than the USDA’s NAIS program. De facto nationalization of the livestock industry by making every little farmer use a standardized system based on the methods of the largest agribiz setups. Yeah, the USDA has now said it is “voluntary” at the federal level, but the States lose chunks of USDA money if they don’t comply with the old 100% mandatory down to grandma’s pet chicken registration goals.
http://www.nonais.org