Immigration Nirvana??? (UPDATED)

In an editorial, The Washington Post this morning that the state of 'nirvana' that the stalled immigration bill represented has been lost. The Post was using Sen. McCain's characterization of legislation almost identical to his own. While I'm not a Buddhist, I have to object to this use of the word nirvana and any implication that this bill was anything close to perfect or enlightened. To be fair, the Post's editorial does recognize that the bill at hand had its imperfections. To use McCain's characterization however was foolish to begin with. Headline: McCain likes his own legislation--yeah's that's real shocking.

Besides the cosmetic flaws, this editorial misses the point that I've been trying to drive home since the deal fell apart. The Post puts all of the blame for the failure of the deal on the Democrats. While procedurally, this may be accurate, this type of finger pointing misses the point. Everybody around that deal is responsible for its failure. The fact that the deal's major proponents failed to account for the conservative amendments that would render many parts of the deal useless while they were 'hammering' out the deal (no pun intended, Tom Delay) is ridiculous. Furthermore, the press conference that announced the 'major breakthrough' was a foolish display of Senatorial back-patting. Strange how the Post misses this aspect of the immigration fiasco.

Another aspect that is lost on the Post's editorial board is the Senators' race for vacation. If this issue and its 'solution' were as important as our leaders' would like us to believe, they could've stayed in DC for a few extra days.

Here's what Minority Leader Reid had to say about the collapse of the compromise:

Republicans are still deeply divided on this issue, and we must protect this fragile compromise from those Senators bent on gutting the bill with hostile amendments. We must also ensure that this comprehensive approach is not lost when the bill reaches conference with the House of Representatives.

It is a test of leadership for President Bush and Senator Frist to stop some Republican Senators from derailing comprehensive reform.

If the bill that the Dems agreed to support is systematically dismantled by Republican amendments, then what's the point?

The role of Sen. Reid and the Democrats in this failure is not lost on me. However, let's not pretend that conservative Republicans had nothing to do with it.

UPDATE: Duke1676 of Migra Matters and I seem to be on the same page.

UPDATE II: Kevin Drum does a great job articulating what happened here:

But Frist's actions made it crystal clear that the standard double cross was in the works: agree on a deal, water it down with amendments, gut it in conference, and then eventually present Democrats with a fait accompli: an up-or-down vote on a conference markup that looks nothing like the one Frist and Reid shook hands on. Democrats would then have the choice of either voting for a harsh and punitive bill they never agreed to or else filibustering it and getting tarred as obstructionists by gleeful Republicans[...]

But despite what the Washington Post thinks, what was at stake here wasn't the compromise bill that Reid and Frist agreed to — a bill that might very well have been a decent step forward. That was just flash for the rubes, and Frist knew it perfectly well. Pro-immigration groups who are complaining about Reid's hardball would be wise to figure this out too.

When someone has suckered you enough times, you demand guarantees before you'll make another deal with him. If all you get is sweet talk, you know the fix is in and you walk away. Reid walked away, and it was the right thing to do.