‘Immigration cleared the air’?

May 23, 2007

Ready to laugh out loud? The Bush gang — you know, the flailing failures operating the executive branch like the Keystone Kops — believe Bush’s presidency is back on track. Apparently, a widely panned immigration bill is, in the minds of those in the West Wing, what got the White House over the hump.

Relieved White House officials say President Bush has finally broken the cycle of bad news and political setbacks he has endured for months.

The officials say the bipartisan agreement on immigration, backed by Bush and now being considered by the Senate, did the trick. And even though that deal is fragile and under attack from the left and the right, the fact that key Senate leaders of both parties approved it, including Democrat Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Republican John Kyl of Arizona, is seen as a sign that times will get better for Bush as he pursues his second-term agenda.

“Immigration cleared the air,” a senior White House official told U.S. News.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news for the Bush gang, but this isn’t even remotely true.

For one thing, this immigration bill appears to have no meaningful support. Its defenders usually start out by saying, “This bill is imperfect, and it’s drawn enormous opposition, but….” This isn’t the kind of dynamic that saves a White House; it’s the kind of environment in which an unpopular president finds his national support dropping even lower.

For another, the White House may not have noticed, but there are multiple scandals swirling around them right now, the president’s war policy is failing and losing friends fast, the immigration bill the Bush gang is so fond of probably won’t pass, the Republicans running to replace him don’t want to even say his name out loud in public, and nearly the entirety of the president’s domestic policy agenda consists of saying no to the Democrats’ wish list.

Let me put this another way: there is no comeback. There can’t be a comeback. It’s too late, Bush has failed too much, and he’s too lame a lame duck. The new immigration reform bill didn’t “clear the air,” it just gave people something new to criticize him over.

With apologies to Monty Python, this presidency is no more. It has ceased to be. It’s expired and gone to meet its maker. This is a late presidency. It’s a stiff. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. If you hadn’t nailed it to the Oval Office it would be pushing up the daisies. It’s rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.

“Broken the cycle of bad news?” Please. This might as well be an ex-president.

Maybe it “cleared the air” the same way Bush’s “Clear Skies Initiative” did.

And a lot of his die-hard koolaid junkies finally spat it out, so his numbers will tank in the upcoming polls. (BTW, IMO bashing Bush about the immigration bill is fair play even if you support the damn thing, because the wingnuts are all that he has left, and HE needs to go)

He’s heading for single digits.

  • If it weren’t all so tragic, it would be comic.

    Every time I see one more spin like this, I want to scream.

  • Wow. News that purports to be legitimate is more and more indistinguishable from ‘The Onion’ with each passing day. Just copy it and paste it into a site with a completely different viewership… and just watch people delight in its ironic hilarity.

  • If only he were an ex-president. Sadly, our ex-president can, for another year and a half, appoint hacks to posts where their incompetence will harm us, tinker with regulations meant to keep his sort of destructive incompetence in check, veto bills which the great majority of Americans want to see passed, and run secret ops to commit only God-knows-what horrors while lying out of both sides of his mouth.

    What he’s lost is the ability to do anything useful or good. He’s the reverse-Midas president. As long as this horse’s patootie remains in the White House, our beloved nation will continue sliding towards ruin.

  • “Immigration cleared the air,” a senior White House official told U.S. News.

    I wonder… did the “senior White House official” look remarkably like “Baghdad Bob”?

    Just curious.

  • What’s the over/under on how many days before this new “CW” will be confirmed in a David Broder column?

  • “Immigration cleared the air,” a senior White House official told U.S. News.

    Nothing will clear the air until the *source* of the stink is removed from the Oval Office.

  • Yes and in his short time left Bush is trying to completely destroy the middle east stability and build an army of hate toward America. Leaving a politicized constitution and a bought and sold country. He never believed in a democracy and is a traitor to the constitution. The blood will continue to run till he and is ilk are eradicated from government.
    the Difference are those 9 words Reagan Hates:

    “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”

    and The Katrina Victims love and say “thank God”

  • ***Ready to laugh out loud? The Bush gang — you know, the flailing failures operating the executive branch like the Keystone Kops***

    I must voice my profound resentment at this cruel, inhumane slander against the Keystone Kops. I have a collection of their antics on film, by the way—and none of them look like Cheney and Rove. They don’t look like any of the Bu$h family, either—although the short one that keeps getting slapped around by the others might be Gonzo, and there is that stick-of-a-man who looks kinda/sorta like Tony Snow—the one that’s always waving his baton at everyone, just to get their attention (I call him “shiny-thing Kop”)….

  • Obviously the bunker-bubble around the WH is very much intact. That’s fine because the more air time this immigration business gets the worse it is for the Rethugs. It could split the Wall Street bunch from the red necks once and for a while.

    But as much as I would like to say dust-to-dust, ashes to ashes on this regime they are still very much in power, and can thwart any effort to put this country back on track. Given the spineless, mindless, cowering Demowusses this nightmare is not yet over.

  • Was it here that I read that a top Republican said about the Immigration Bill that he was not going to speak out against that “piece of shit”?

  • I can understand why the WH sees the immigration bill as they do. They’ve driven into a ditch so many times, they think it’s an on ramp.

  • They really do live in an alternate universe.

    I can’t wait until the next president.

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