This morning’s New York Times publishes a moving tribute to Ted Kennedy’s efforts to save his sinking Oldsmobile of an immigration bill as it plunged to the ocean floor. If only liberalism’s last lion had shown such determination and interest in saving Mary Jo Kopechne.

The Grey Lady refers to Kennedy as “an immigration advocate since his first days in the Senate nearly 45 years ago.” Since this bill and the accompanying debate were about illegal immigration, I’m not sure what this non sequitur has to do with anything. I guess as far as the Grey Lady is concerned, there is never a bad time to remind its readership what a fine and noble public servant Ted Kennedy is.

The Times’ coverage of the immigration story is either amazingly dishonest or amazingly out of touch. Frankly, when it comes to the New York Times, I can’t tell the difference. To illuminate the unfairness of the ill-fate that befell the bill, the Times unearthed some academic egghead to make it plain:

“People on opposite sides of the political spectrum, in effect, banded together to defeat the middle,” said James G. Gimpel, a professor at the University of Maryland who has written a book on the politics of immigration. “Restrictionists on the right were always against the bill because they opposed any legalization for illegal immigrants.

“Business groups and their allies, including advocates for immigrant rights, lost much of their ardor for the bill because of changes made in the legislative process.”

With all due respect to Professor Gimpel (who knows so much about the politics of immigration he has written a book on the subject!), he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. As Rasmussen Reports reports:

The immigration bill failed because a broad cross-section of the American people are opposed to it. Republicans, Democrats, and unaffiliated voters are opposed. Men are opposed. So are women. The young don’t like it; neither do the no-longer-young. White Americans are opposed. Americans of color are opposed.

The last Rasmussen Reports national telephone poll found that just 23% of Americans supported the legislation. When a bill has less popular support than the War in Iraq, it deserves to be defeated.

There is no vast middle of the American body politic that liked this bill. This bill died because it stunk, and its stinkiness became a matter of public knowledge. It died because Senators Clinton and Obama didn’t want to defend it during the campaign. By the way, do you think John Edwards would have belatedly discovered the bill’s flaws after the two frontrunners helped it become law? Always a chance, I guess.

It died because when Republican congressmen went home over Memorial Day to meet their constituents, they got a solid message. For goodness sakes, angry “supporters” nearly ripped the plaid shirt from poor Lamar Alexander’s body. According to my sources on Capitol Hill, members of Congress never received so much constituency input on a particular matter. Letters and calls ran roughly 350-1 against the bill.

And as far as the Democrats go, I monitor the left wing blogs and I didn’t see a single one of them say a single word of support for this hideous bill. As Markos Moulitsas constantly reminds us, he goes to the “winnerism” school of politics. And this bill was a loser.

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