I am happy to announce that I was wrong when I predicted that the amnesty supported by the President, the Democrats and a few worthless Republicans was likely a done deal. Fortunately, the bill kinda sorta fell apart in the heat of a rather fierce battle.

The jubilation that I have since received in emails and read of in a number of other places, however, should be tempered: It was such a spirited ruckus, including a Republican filibuster and politicians of both parties crossing the aisle and some proposals that threw everyone for a loop that the folks at the Tower of Babel could sooner have produced a coherent result.

Harry Reid finally jerked the bill, stating time concerns, so it is not yet any kind of a resolved argument.

The immigration “grand bargain” imploded in the Senate last night under a Republican-led filibuster, with the bill under attack from both sides and collapsing of its own weight.

In two votes yesterday Republicans blocked Democratic leaders’ bid to end to the debate and hold a final vote on the bill — each time joined by more than 10 Democrats.

At the end of the day, it was certainly the hammering voters all over the country gave our senators and their staffs regarding the will of the people that spawned those results.

To add to the positive side, RINO John McCain, a Kennedy Kohort in the attempted sellout of America, went away mad. I’ll bet he was muttering “drat, and double drat!”

Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican and a 2008 presidential candidate who had invested a lot of his political capital in the issue, refused to talk to reporters as he left the Senate floor.

“I don’t have anything to say. I apologize, but I don’t have anything to say,” he said as he ducked inside the senators-only elevator. Mr. McCain was one of the seven Republicans who sided with Democrats to break the filibuster.

This is far from over, count on it.

But Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican and another who voted to break the filibuster, said he will try to force the bill back onto the schedule.

“We could see the finish line,” he said. “At the end of the day, there’s a small group of people, probably on both sides, that want to make sure we don’t succeed. And we’ll find a way around that.”

Mr. Reid left open the possibility of returning to the bill again this year, but Democrats said that will depend on Mr. Bush.

“When the president calls Harry Reid and says I can get some more votes for you, we’ll come back to it. But until that time we can’t,” he said. “They said he made some phone calls, but he could only deliver six or seven votes.”

Passing an amnesty bill is of vital strategic importance to the Democrats: Doing so could literally blast the Republicans out of the ball park. The severe damage it would also inflict on our economy and our national work force are of no concern to the Democrats, not when compared to their party’s political aspirations. So much for patriotism.

Outside winning the War on Terror, the same amnesty is Bush’s first priority, and the President can’t campaign for reelection, as he’s had his two terms.

Given that his own political base is opposed to amnesty for criminal aliens, this says quite a bit,
that he has motives that are strong enough that he’s willing to tell his own party to go piss up a rope.

I’ll bet that when the bill was yanked (not defeated, remember), he was on the telephone with one of his senior people at the Committee On Foreign Relations, discussing strategies for garnering more support for the next go-round on the issue. Amnesty soon would make the transition, three or so years in the future, to the North American Union infinitely smoother.

Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy and the rest of that crowd will no doubt be browbeating or offering pork bribes to the Democrat senators that oppose amnesty, setting the stage, along with Bush, for enough votes to kill a filibuster and win a vote.

The amnesty bill will be bock!