Reid for amnesty

Harry Reid has already crossed the American electorate once this year, delivering horrendous health care legislation to the president. On Saturday, he vowed to repeat the insult by passing more unwanted "reforms," this time to benefit illegal immigrants.

"We need to do this this year," the Senate majority leader said at a downtown Las Vegas rally, promising to make amnesty for illegals the top priority of Congress when lawmakers return to Washington this week.

"There's no excuses, there's no excuses. ... We're going to do immigration reform just like we did health care reform."

The underhanded deals that got new health insurance regulations passed were every bit as unpopular with the public as the regulations themselves, so the prospect of more vote buying at the expense of Nevada taxpayers is pathetic.

Little has changed in the illegal immigration debate since Sen. Reid's previous attempt to pass "comprehensive reform" went down in flames in 2007 (although illegals are more careful to wave American flags these days instead of the banners of their home countries).

Groups such as Reform Immigration for America, which organized Saturday's rally, still want amnesty for all illegals in the United States, guarantees that they can stay in the country for the rest of their lives, an expedited path to citizenship and visas for the extended families they left behind.

These demands are extremely unpopular with taxpaying voters, especially legal immigrants and naturalized citizens who completed the lawful process at significant expense and sacrifice. Nonetheless, just as critics of the health care debacle were marginalized as racist, anti-government loons -- "evil mongers," in Sen. Reid's own words -- amnesty foes will be labeled racist, anti-immigrant loons.

By using the word "undocumented" and condemning the use of the word "illegal," amnesty proponents will try to control the language of the debate and de-emphasize just how much they're asking for.

Sen. Reid's arrogance can't be underestimated. He doesn't care about the polls that show public opposition to his agenda and wide disfavor with him, personally. He's too busy enacting the decades-old dreams of the Democratic elite -- and creating future dependent Democratic voters.

But if Sen. Reid insists on publicly proclaiming that Americans really want to turn illegals into citizens, then why doesn't he make his re-election race a referendum on amnesty? He can spend his millions of dollars on commercials touting his position on "comprehensive immigration reform."

Let's see how that plays out for him.