Now we just getting silly…

“Conservative leaders among House Republicans say that President Bush’s upcoming showdown with them on immigration could threaten support for the Iraq war as well as for the president’s other top policy goals.

“The White House should keep in mind that if they have a direct confrontation with House Republicans on [immigration], it could affect the vote on the Iraq appropriation in September,” said Rep. Peter T. King, New York Republican. “It will not affect me. I intend to stand by the president. But I do think it is something they should keep in mind for other Republicans who are borderline.”

Mr. King last week introduced legisla Mr. King last week introduced legislation that would focus on border security while eliminating many of the guest-worker and path-to-citizenship provisions in the Senate proposal, which he called an “amnesty bill.”

Rep. Adam H. Putnam, Florida Republican, warned that a lackluster immigration bill could do “irreparable harm” to House Republican support for the president.

“If the president makes it clear he’ll sign any immigration bill that gets to his desk, no matter what it looks like, then it certainly will do more harm than good,” said Mr. Putnam, who as chairman of the House Republican Conference is the third-ranking House Republican.”

First of all this is just King spouting off – he’s been known to do that. Second, let’s not forget that the reason myself and others are against this bill do so because we have read the thing and found it wanting – seriously wanting.

That said, Bush does have a problem here with conservatives that value national security. On the one hand he’s been die hard tough on the war on terror, and then on the other hand he wants to handout blanket amnesty to 12 million virtual strangers to our law enforcement and homeland security folks.

It’s is an apparent contradiction, and not just in the minds of a few. Hardly a poll has been conducted that hasn’t shown strong conservative opposition to it, and Bush’s low approval numbers are simply a reflection of that base dissatisfaction.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t matter because this bill is by all accounts dead anyway. As I said earlier in the day it simply is not going to get the 60 votes necessary for cloture. Again, the opposition against this bill isn’t an aberation nor because people are racists or some other nonsense. The bill is a nice effort, but again when you read through it you find – if your head doesn’t explode first – it’s simply a bad bill and not the fix people think it is.