Immigration Bill Roundup

Over the last couple days a number of interesting articles have been published by prominent conservatives who are critical of the Senate's immigration bill.

George Will (subject link) writes on "A Bill That Has Earned Its Doubters."

Peggy Noonan weighs in with "Slow Down and Absorb."

Ed Meese, the Attorney General under President Reagan, talks about the bill on video.

William F. Buckley, Jr., writes on "Immigration Blues."

And John Podhoretz has written "Better Off Losing: Bush Can't Afford Immigration Victory."

Finally, National Review, in its new editorial, notes the irony that legal status "is a prize available only to those aliens who have violated our immigration laws." Doesn't it seem unfair that those immigrants who are going through the legal process don't receive the same immediate probationary "legal" status? Break the law, win the immigration jackpot.

Saturday Update: Don't miss Paul Mirengoff of Power Line taking on a column by former White House speechwriter Michael Gerson, in which Gerson derides conservative concerns about the bill as the fears of "nativists" (there they go again...).

Mirengoff: "I feel frustrated that the White House failed, in my view, to push this hard for initiatives I favor, or when it came to defending itself on Iraq. I'm also frustrated that the White House fails to treat seriously the concerns conservatives have about its immigration package. The tendency instead is to misrepresent or demean our concerns and, to some extent, demonize us."

Mirengoff's entire post -- including taking on the "straw man" argument of Michael Chertoff and others that the only alternative to the bill is "mass deportation" -- is outstanding.