Some conspiratorial speculation.

G.O.P. Sets Aside Work on Immigration

turns out to have been a bit off. Work may have stopped on the "comprehensive" Senate-style bill, but only in the NYT's world is the Senate bill synonymous with immigration reform. The Washington Times says

Top Republicans are planning a series of tough new border-security measures that they hope can get through the Senate, which in the past has opposed border-security legislation unless it has included a guest-worker program and grants citizenship rights to the estimated 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens already here.

WashTimes also reports that some "comprehensive" supporters in the Senate are already waffling. ... All as described with eerie prescience here  and here. ... See also The Weekly Standard, for whatever the opposite of eerie prescience is. ... 6:23 P.M.

Baghdad Death Toll Revision? Yikes. [via Insta] ... ABC's reporter doesn't hide his own opinion:

Operation Together Forward, the main thrust of the new [US-Iraqi] strategy, involves establishing pockets of security in select neighborhoods and then slowly adding more. These latest numbers add substance to fears Together Forward creates a whack-a-mole effect: that is, secure one area and the violence will pop up somewhere else.

If you keep whacking the moles, though, do they eventually run out of places to surface?  ... 3:14 P.M.

Day-Old Item, Half-Priced: Bruce Reed seemed to have the key to explaining Bush's irritating reemphasis  of the Global War on Terror---the President has to say something, and  by talking about national security he fills that vacuum  while letting GOP candidates run their own races on their own issues (i.e. opposition to his immigration plan).**:

It's the Perfect Way to Hide: But the real reason for the White House strategy may be more basic: An all-politics-is-local campaign would leave the president with nothing to do. Bush rightly considers himself one of the best campaigners on the Republican side and doesn't want to spend his last campaign as little more than fundraiser-in-chief.

But I should have posted this item yesterday!  From today's perspective it certainly looks as if the legalistic particulars of Bush's anti-terror demarche--i.e. making an issue of Democratic resistance on semi-torture, trial rights, surveillance, etc.--might actually help the GOPs, doesn't it? (See Brownstein.) ... P.S.: And I'm not sure that the Dems have a "get out of jail free card" just because Republicans like John McCain oppose the White House too. Voters could still be reminded that Democrats generally are too ACLU-friendly for their taste. ... P.S.: Sorry, I forgot. The cake is already baked! ...

**--All this assumes, of course, that Bush actually wants  the GOPs to retain the House. ... 2:43 P.M.