What passes for "high discourse" AM Radio Style.

Immigration debate kindled new level of rancor, division


(06-29) 04:00 PDT Washington -- A lethal combination of lack of government credibility, a lame-duck president, fractures in both parties and an electric undercurrent of hostility to illegal foreigners decisively ended for at least two years, and possibly much longer, any effort to offer a path to citizenship to the estimated 12 million people living illegally in the United States.

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The debate in its final days had a rancor seldom seen even in matters of war. Supporters complained of racist hate mail. Majority leader Harry Reid said a caller from his tiny hometown of Searchlight, Nev., told him he should enter a witness protection program.

A vivid rift between Southern conservatives and Northern liberals touched the rawest nerves of American history. A knot of Southern Republicans -- Sens. David Vitter of Louisiana, Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Jim DeMint of South Carolina -- rose again and again on the floor to block action.

"This immigration bill has become a war between the American people and their government," DeMint said.

Vitter hotly denied that the fight cast Southern Republicans in the mold of Southern Democratic segregationists of the 1960s.

"Eighty percent of the American people were against this bill," he said. "For anybody to suggest that was about racism, I think itself is the height of ugliness and arrogance."

I heard Scarborough repeat this "80% of American people against the bill" also. Wonder where this stat came from, since all the ones I've seen are overwhelmingly pro the immigration bill.

Must be quoting Lou Dobb's surveys.