The McCain doubletalk express

The Fake Talk Express Rolls On: Remember Sen. John McCain's shock upon learning that the provision requiring illegal immigrants to pay "back taxes" had been dropped from the Senate bill? McCain professed surprise at this development, and introduced an amendment, which was adopted, that purported to stick the requirement back in. It now turns out that McCain's restore-back-taxes amendment was itself a fraud. Mark Krikorian reports:

Take look at Loophole 18 in Sen. Sessions' list ; it turns out that McCain's amendment only requires that those legalized illegals applying to trade up to regular, permanent immigrant status (a green card) show they've paid taxes on income earned after they were amnestied, i.e., while they had probabtionary status and then the Z visa. There's no back taxes requirement to get the Z visa and obviously none for the initial phase of the amnesty, which has to be granted by the end of the next business day after applying for it. In other words, there is no requirement that illegal aliens pay back taxes to receive amnesty. [E.A.]

Meanwhile, McCain has returned to telling voters that under the bill illegals would have to "pay back taxes."** ... Again, the larger point is you can't rely on anything the Grand Bargainers say. They're in full fool-the-yahoos mode. Why shouldn't voters expect that they would carry out the difficult enforcement mandates in their bill, if it passes, in the same disingenuous spirit? You can't trust them! [You're writing as badly as Andrew Sullivan--ed I know! I'm excited!]