The sad, simple truth lies in a lesson DC isn't likely to forget

This will be our final post regarding the demise of the immigration shamnesty bill, but it's one that's due. See, a lot of people were worked up about this bill. Marcie and I received a helluva lot more e-mail than ever starting about four weeks ago. A few were telling us to drop the immigration posts, and take the bill as it is because it was better than the way things are now. The vast majority of those e-mails were urging us on, sending us links to other blogs and information sources, and of course asking what they could do to help.



Call. Write. Use your God-given voice and your God-given rights to tell the Senate to stick this bill where the sun doesn't shine.



The point of this is simple: AMERICA won the day. A union of the average Joes, think-tanks, talk radio, and blogs took this fight to the Senate. There we located some very important allies in the fight; allies that never wavered in their opposition to a bill conceived in secret away from the public's eyes. While talk radio and the think tanks have their muscle, and have had it for years, the new hotshot on the block made an indeliable mark on the map. Blogs became the driving force behind the debate. Talk radio may be on all day, but the hosts change, and not every talk radio host was on our side. The think tanks work 9-5. We were there 24/7, and matching the White House and Senate move for move. Bill quick at The Daily Pundit had this observation: (emphasis mine)

In the end, the underdogs crushed the Bush Amnesty, and in the process, came of age as a true power player on the national political scene. Of course many contributed: Conservative think tanks generated reports and analysis, and the righty talkers mobilized their millions of listeners. But in the middle was something new: the Blogosphere, which reacted to every Bush attempt with speed and ferocity never seen before in American politics. The bill was subjected to a merciless spotlight within hours of its release, so merciless that it became impossible for Senators to follow their usual procedure and vote for it sight unseen.

The talkers became, essentially, a megaphone for the work done at lightning speed in the blogosphere. Everybody you listened to was saying things like, “I saw on NRO,” or “the Powerline guys are reporting,” or “Michelle Malkin just posted,” or “Mickey Kaus said,” or “you can search the bill yourself at N.Z. Bear’s blog,” as well as passing mention of dozens of other blogs, or analysis obviously generated in the blogosphere. We gave them everything: speed, accuracy, analysis, information resources, encouragement, any and everything the talkers could possibly need or use to mobilize and engage their massive listening audiences. And we did it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from the start of this battle to the finish.

And Bush never wavered. Nobody withdrew anything, nobody made any real concessions. Bush staked his power and reputation on his ability to shut down the power of the blogs and the talkers, and he failed. Not only did he fail, he failed miserably. It was a naked, bare-knuckles slugging match, and we knocked him out cold.

Without the blogosphere, the talkers would have still been clearing their throats when Bush, Reid, McCain, Kennedy, and Graham presented them with a fait accompli.

What Does It Mean?

It means we’re in the big leagues now, and it means that other players must now regard us as equals, and potentially dangerous. We’ve been growing toward this for some time, but now we’ve arrived. We took everything the entrenched powers of Washington could throw at us, and we beat them.

Which means the entrenched powers are no longer going to be looking at us as an interesting toy. They are going to look at us as potential allies and enemies. And if we are enemies, then they will try to destroy us. We made a lot of enemies in this fight. They won’t forget. Neither should we.

This is just one of the reasons why we scoff at the critics that regard bloggers as losers, as people who just like to start trouble. And those sentiments come fromt he media elites in their ivory towers, and it used to come from Washington, DC, too. Not anymore. We have scored too many victories and mounted too many heads on our collective wall to be looked down upon by these people. Amd that goes for every blogger out there -- from the big guns to the small fish. EVERYONE contributed. We didn't need to make an alliance. We didn't need to e-mail and beg each other for support. We saw what was being done, decided we weren't going to sit idly by and let the elites get their way, and we moved as one.

No one is left out of the loop in the thanks that started coming across the airwaves and bandwidths yesterday. I think Michelle Malkin presented the best round of thanks that anyone could give:

Thanks to the stalwart, true leaders in the Senate — especially Sens. Sessions, DeMint, Vitter, Inhofe, Cornyn, and their staffs. Thanks to the House GOP members who made their opposition known. Thanks to the Loud Folks on the right side of the dial. Thanks to the Loud Folks at The Corner, RedState, Human Events, Townhall, Kaus, N.Z. Bear, my colleagues at Hot Air, and all the enforcement-first bloggers out there who weighed in. Thanks to the analysts at the Heritage Foundation, the enforcement/assimilation proponents at The Manhattan Institute, George Borjas, Kris Kobach, Eagle Forum, 9/11 Families, FAIR and Numbers USA. Thanks to the immigration enforcement activists who’ve been at this for years and decades before this one battle began. Most importantly, thanks to all the ordinary “Loud Folks” who called, phoned, e-mailed, and blogged their opposition.

This is what the entrenched elites in DC and the MSM lost to. We were, as Rich Lowry stated today in his piece on TownHall, the "aroused citizenry." United in opposition, and one that crossed party lines, we tackled Goliath, and knocked him out cold. The "Army of Davids" that Glenn Reynolds wrote about, and warned the elites about, just made it's mark on the map.

We're here. We're here to stay. Get used to it. We can either be your best friend, or your worst nightmare. I think the last four to five weeks showed the nightmare side to the elites that clicked their tongues at us when this all started.

Publius II