From The Washington Post
By David S. Broder

The story line of the week was “Republicans in Retreat,” as major pieces of President Bush’s legislative program hit roadblocks on Capitol Hill. The subtext was a largely unexamined cultural and political gap between the president and important parts of his core constituency, a rift that only now, in his sixth year in office, is becoming evident.

First, a quick summary of what happened. On Tuesday morning House Republican leaders met with Speaker Dennis Hastert to assess the prospects for immigration reform. Widely different bills had passed in the House and Senate, and the normal procedure would be to appoint conferees to negotiate a possible compromise.

But in the leadership meeting, the view that emerged was that the House GOP membership would tolerate no deviation from the original House position — close the border with Mexico now and only later consider a guest worker program or possible citizenship for some of the estimated 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants to be living in this country.

The Senate approach — linking all those steps in a single package — was a nonstarter, the House leaders decided. So instead of naming conferees, they ordered up a new round of regional hearings — a time-killing stall that may well doom the chances of any action this year on Bush’s No. 1 domestic policy proposal.

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