Byron York thinks immigration reform can come back from the dead. Drum, on the other hand, can’t find a pulse:
[W]ould the business community like to see a comprehensive bill pass? Sure, probably. Is it a huge priority? No, not really. Are they willing to go along with the obvious reality that it can’t pass the House? It sure sounds like it.
Waldman wants Democrats to revive the immigration reform debate, even if it’s doomed:
The thing is, even if Obama were sure there was next to no chance of succeeding in passing reform, there are few things he could spend time talking about over the next few months that would do more damage to his opponents.
Think about it this way: What’s the GOP’s biggest problem right now? It’s the widespread perception that they’re a bunch of extremists who are willing to throw sand in the gears of the political system to fight anything Barack Obama wants to do, no matter the damage to everyone else, and even the sane people in the party don’t have the courage to stand up to Tea Party nuts. And what happens if we have a debate about immigration?
Well, you’d see a lot of establishment Republicans saying, “This is something we really should do.” And then you’d have a bunch of conservative Republicans saying, “No, no, no!” and making outlandish demands. And I’d rate the chances at somewhere around 99 percent that along the way some of those Tea Partiers will say some ugly things about immigrants that get lots of attention and cause Karl Rove and the rest of the national Republican establishment no end of agita.
Ezra chuckles at how, when it comes to tackling immigration reform, the GOP is “so scared that Obama is trying to destroy them that they’re destroying themselves”:
The unifying excuses for the GOP’s failure to move on immigration reform is that it’s all the Democrats’ fault. York quotes an unnamed Republican lawmaker saying, “Everyone has seen the bad faith exhibited by Obama and Reid during this fiscal fight and I can’t imagine anyone making the case that a final [immigration] product would reflect conservative principles in any fashion.” That’s similar, of course, to Labrador’s contention that Republicans should abandon immigration because Obama is trying to destroy the Republican Party.
The irony is that if you talk to White House officials, their belief has long been that immigration reform might be possible precisely because it would help the Republican Party politically and because the Senate was able to craft a bill that conservatives like Marco Rubio found ideologically congenial. They’ve even tried to keep Obama distant from the process so the Senate Republicans who participated would get much of the credit. If the price of immigration reform is a more competitive Republican Party in 2016, it’s a price the White House is happy to pay.
The Dish 