"Debate" brought out childishness
06/29/2007 02:50:39 AM MDT


Now that it's finally over, only the vital questions remain.

Which was more annoying: the immigration bill or the immigration bill "debate"? Who is more juvenile: Congressman Tom Tancredo or Sen. Ken Salazar? And is it possible to have a lower approval rating than President Bush?

If you're not in Congress, I mean.

A debate typically entails two sides hashing out an issue with facts, rebuttals and so on. Listening on occasion. Not here. It was like watching my grandparents discuss dinner plans.

The comprehensive immigration reform died an ignominious death Thursday in Washington when senators would not allow debate to end - and not a moment too soon.

How many Coloradans truly understand the intricacies of this wide-ranging reform? Few, I suspect. The bill was roughly 10 billion of the most mystifying words ever put to paper.

You can find it online if you're experiencing trouble getting to sleep.

There is an interesting Colorado angle to this fracas. The role that Salazar and congressman, presidential candidate and enfant terrible Tancredo played.

The passion. The foot-stomping. The name-calling. Every 5-year-old (and/or columnist) could relate.

Tancredo, who didn't have a chance to vote on reform, sent a basket of lettuce and fruit to the office of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff as a prank of protest. Tancredo had been offended by Chertoff's assertion that crops were rotting in the fields because of a lack of workers.

Salazar came out swinging - which is rare, unless the swing is vetted by advisers, cleared by a national pollster and run through a half-dozen focus groups - calling Tancredo's fruit basket a "political stunt."

Well, of course it was. Tancredo, feigning insult at this mild rebuke, retorted: "It may be a political stunt, but his own comment about it is political idiocy."

Tancredo will do about anything to grab media attention, including, in essence, calling a sitting senator an idiot. Presidential, don't you think?

Salazar, on the other hand, plays right into Tancredo's hands.

"Today," Salazar said, "we have a system of chaos and disorder." He went on to contend that opponents of this terrible bill for "whatever motivation they had ... compromised the national security of the United States."

Salazar's implication that those who didn't support the measure - 37 Republican and 15 Democratic senators - are somehow compromising national security is quite a stretch.

It's the sort of over-the-top statement that gets Tancredo's most ardent allies excited.

We're talking about talk-radio audiences. And Denver is a rich talk-radio town. Any morning you can flip through a glut of conservative radio hosts, a progressive host, National Public Radio and sports.

And every morning you can catch one of the most passionate critics of illegal immigration and Tancredo ally, the populist voice of longtime Denver KHOW host Peter Boyles. (Disclosure: I've been a guest on Boyles' show on numerous occasions. Most often we have a congenial conversation, though I've been bloodied over the issue of immigration a couple of times.)

Callers don't just listen to Boyles, they act. The host urges Coloradans to call the governor. Senators. Congress.

Though I'm not a habitual listener of talk radio, I can't remember any issue that has elicited as intense an opposition as this immigration reform.

Just how much pressure Colorado talk radio brought to bear is unknown. But we do know that activist radio is a political tool that can make quite a racket.

Plenty of folks are now campaigning to shut down or dull the edge of talk radio for their own political purposes, which is another story.

In the end, agree with Tancredo or not, it's the First Amendment in action.

Me? I'm just happy the whole thing - vegetable baskets, acrimony and contrived outrage - is over.

For now.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_6256417