Just like the neo-con cabal's advice to do a pre emptive strike on Iraq, one neo-con must have been writing his column under the recent full moon that coincided with Election day. In the quickest (and what he must have seen as a strategically clever) counterattack on immigration reform yet, Fred Barnes, the Editor of The Weekly Standard, a neo-con paper, claims that Republicans lost in this mid term election in part because of their failure to enact open border legislation.

Sorry, Fred, it was the long list of Bush failures, the very neo con policies which brought us into the Iraq War, which you admit was a factor, as well as pushing ultra right social views on stem cell research and a woman's right to choose. And, oh, yes, Fred, remember Mark Foley, and the breakdowns all over the Republican landscape in public morality, so highly prized by Bush's evangelical base? Furthermore, Americans saw Bush as ignoring civil rights and installing a one party rule. They didn't like his handling of Katrina and the more sophisticated among voters realized the insidious North American Union plan was the ultimate multinational corporate giveaway.

So now this massive loss of power Mr. Barnes mostly blames on "immigration restrictionists" in his November 8, 2006 article entitled, "Post Mortem:Why Republicans got shellacked in the midterms". His evidence is weak to begin with, but his logic is impeccable, if you care more about getting big money from cheap labor employers to keep the flood coming. This demand has been fulfilled by politicians on both sides of the aisle for far too long. He claims "Already the wails of the immigration restrictionists are rising, insisting Republicans lost because they weren't tough on keeping illegal border-crossers out. Not true. The test was in Arizona, where two of the noisiest border hawks, Representatives J.D. Hayworth and Randy Graf, lost House seats. Graf lost in a seat along the Mexican border, where illegal immigrants flock."

C'mon, Fred, you know very well these Republicans were victims of Bush's war policy, and their stances on other issues, not their stance on border security. Arizona Senator, John Kyl, who is strong on immigration reform won his 3rd term with ease. And all the Initiatives on the Arizona ballot favoring border control passed! Not exactly voter rejection, Fred. Brian Bilbray, a strong pro border security/immigration reform Republican, won handily in the San Diego area. California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, a border control advocate, won in a landslide.

It is true that because of strong Democratic resistance, immigration reform didn't get done in this Republican controlled Congress. Barnes goes on to say,

"What Americans want is a full-blown solution to the immigration crisis. And that will come only when Republicans come together on a " comprehensive" measure that not only secures the border but also provides a way for illegals in the United States to work their way to citizenship and establishes a temporary worker program. If Republicans don't grab this issue, Democrats will."

How clever. There were a few brave mostly Republican voices in the avalanche of cave-ins by pols on both sides, but who is waiting to sign an open border bill like the Senate passed (S2611)? President Bush, that's who! Barnes takes his party leader's weakness on immigration and blames it on those brave enough to stand up for real reform, not just another amnesty that has added over 40 million to our numbers since the ill fated 1965 legislation.

The 80 plus percent of us who want our laws followed and improved by being sure we know who comes here and if legal are being set up for the fastest legislative shuffle ever done on this issue. According to Barnes, if we only quickly authorize the 11 to 20 million illegals here now, it will be better for his party in 2008. American citizens of Hispanic heritage are clearly not anxious for that to happen, as the "You Don't Speak For Me" group has articulately pointed out.

One observer who noted about Barnes's Post Mortem tirade: "My question is this: why is it that these dolts always seem to point fingers at the any immigration reformer who loses and says "See, his immigration stance hurt him!" Perhaps Republican positions on stem-cell research, Iraq, abortion, etc. hurt them in reality, but we never hear those arguments from the wide-open-borders people like Dick Morris, and Tamar Jacoby, do we?"

Thank goodness we still have Lou Dobbs and his weekdays 6 PM CNN Nightly News program to keep setting the record straight.

But watch out. This new Democratic Congress may very well try to use this chance to open our borders. It will then be up to the Republicans, at least the sane ones, to stop it. Sadly Bush will not help them, despite research from the conservative Heritage Foundation which shows that allowing such liberal comprehensive immigration reform would open the US to a flood of illegal and legal aliens, which could in 20 years time number to another 50 or 60 million.

Now with a population of 300 million, by 2050 projected to be 500 million, most Americans know we are too full already and this onslaught of untutored, un-acculturated new comers would spell the end of the Middle Class and the permanent construction of an underclass of slaves who could serve the likes of the super rich elites and their acolytes like Mr. Barnes.

We need a bi partisan understanding that nothing is gained for American citizens by comprehensive immigration reform except a diminution of public services for us and a crushing of our beloved country under the load of new, soon to be demanding more, uneducated hoards.

Anyone who is for "comprehensive immigration reform" (read "open borders") should be voted out of office and if the Democrats choose this route, their tenure will be 2 years long.

Donald A. Collins [email him], is a freelance writer living in Washington DC and a former long time member of the board of FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform. His views are his own.