Being sneaky

I was surprised to learn today that the Senate had tried to move forward a "Dream Bill" for illegal immigrant benefits - proposing that we give college tuition rate breaks to illegals age 30 and under along with legitimizing their stay here. (We don't do this for our own citizens, mind you, but that didn't concern the Senate Democrats.) I was surprised because it sort of slipped in, in the middle of fire disaster news, and didn't seem to get a lot of press. Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but fortunately someone was. Lots of 'someones' apparently had a lot to say to their Senators about it. And the Senators were surprised at the vehemence of it. They'd had massive amount of input from their constituency and it all said "NO!" And they actually listened. People are angry about this.

So if the message is so clear, why aren't we doing something about it? Why are we, instead, trying to 'sneak' things in when no one will notice? Why are we rewording, piece-mealing, and otherwise trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the general public in order to force through legislation that a clear majority of our people think is wrong, unfair and will have a long-term negative impact?

And the commentators on the news this afternoon were categorizing illegals as "the victims of America's broken immigration policy." Just staging for the next attempt.

(They're victims?)

Rhetoric is everything. Spin, spin, spin.



On a Post Script: Arizona's Sen. John McCain was absent for the vote, even though he’d been present on the Senate floor for another vote just an hour earlier. I wonder if any of the other presidential candidates were there?