[jyl]

I recall seeing some polls showing that a majority of Americans support, in principle, the idea of some route to legality for the illegal aliens currently working in the US. A majority also supports tighter border control.

So I am not sure that Bush and Congress is completely out of touch in the general idea - a path to legality plus tighter border control. The details and execution will be a big challenge, of course.

I, for one, think the general outline of the bill is reasonable. I think Bush is doing the right thing here.

As for skewing the future electorate, it will be a decade or more before today's illegal aliens can hope to start becoming citizens. A lot can happen in 10+ years. Hispanics are not bound to the Democratic party. Recall that until recently the Republican party was doing a good job in winning more and more of the Hispanic vote, in large part thanks to social conservatism and Bush's speaking Spanish. Bush won 44% of the Hispanic national vote in 2004, and his 2000 victory was due in part to overwhelmingly winning the Hispanic vote in FL. The Republican party has probably losing ground among Hispanics lately, but then again the Reps have been losing ground with almost all voting groups.