Harry Reid, Villain

Ruben Navarrette:

Republicans were tireless in search of comprehensive, and bipartisan, reform. Sen. John McCain of Arizona joined with Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., to draft the guest-worker legislation, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter made that legislation central to what his committee sent to the full Senate. Sens. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina and Sam Brownback of Kansas were vocal in their support. Sens. Mel Martinez of Florida and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska offered a helpful compromise. And Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist showed leadership by reaching out to the other side.

Too bad you can't say the same for Democratic Leader Harry Reid, who was the villain in this drama.

Hector Flores, president of the League of United Latin-American Citizens, told me that he tried to impress upon Reid's office that it was important to get immigration reform done.

"Apparently, it fell on deaf ears," Flores said.

Reid claims it was GOP hard-liners who killed reform by running roughshod over Frist.

Baloney.

Ouch!

In the House, the Dems prevented the Republicans from amending their bill to make it less draconian, on the theory that they could use the bill as a club to pummel Repubs with in the fall. As though there were no reporters pointing that out.

In other words, the Democrats don't really care about solving the immigration problem. They see this as an opportunity to demagogue the Hispanics, as they've been able to do with African-Americans. Their basic aim is power not good government. Otherwise, they wouldn't be trying to sabotage bills designed to secure our borders.