Likelihood of Success

Instapundit writes about the immigration debate, quoting Mark Steyn to the effect that immigrant advocates who seek to allow their constituents to exit “the shadows” don’t really want to exit them so much that they have to pay taxes like the rest of us — and that, amazingly (but not), the new immigration proposal offers them just that:

[T]his captures the disconnect between Washington officialdom’s view of citizenship, and the view held by actual citizens, something that I think is at the core of the immigration debate. More than hostility to illegal immigrants, I think a lot of the backlash is driven by the sense that Washington insiders don’t really value what ordinary law-abiding people do by way of living their lives and, you know, abiding by the law.

A nice point.  That and rising hostility to just about everything about “Washington insiders.”