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The intelligence bill: Failure as an option
While the final version of the first major overhaul of this nation's intelligence-gathering apparatus in 50 years corrected one fatal flaw of its own making -- potentially deadly interference with the military chain of command -- it delayed for the proverbial "another day" critical changes in our immigration law.
But intelligence and immigration reform are not mutually exclusive.
Chief among Rep. Sensenbrenner's demands -- that illegal aliens be barred from obtaining driver's licenses. It's a gaping hole that the 9/11 hijackers exploited with fiendish designs and dastardly results; it's an open pathway for terrorists to operate here with impunity.
Fear not, we are told, the 109th Congress will "fix things." With a Bush administration proposing amnesty for illegal aliens and a Senate that Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., says is too chummy with the open-borders lobby? Watch out for flying reindeer, why don't you.
Passage of the intelligence reform bill without concurrent immigration fixes is not a shining example of bipartisan compromise. It is no grand success. It is a legislative failure and a damn poor example of political expediency that will come back to haunt us.
