POLITICS AT ITS UGLIEST

POLITICS AT ITS UGLIEST: We delayed this edition a couple of days just so we could include the results of the Senate vote on the DREAM Act.

Now we know.

Sixty votes were needed for its passage. Only 55 could be found and of those, only three were Republicans.

Justice, decency, fairness, compassion, patriotism and common sense all lost. Merit, of course, had nothing to do with the outcome. So what did? Who did?

As did many fine liberal politicians, Senator Robert Menéndez of New Jersey found the culprits quickly. “Core values of compassion and common sense have fallen prey to the shameful cowardice of wedge politics. This is a vote that will not soon be forgotten by a community that is growing not just in size but also in power and political awareness.”

Shortly after voting to break the filibuster against legislation repealing the policy against openly gay and lesbian persons serving in the military, the United States Senate failed to break the Republican-led filibuster blocking consideration of a revised and watered-down DREAM Act to give undocumented youth a shot atcollege and military service.

Bigotry is bipartisan.

It feeds on the passions of the moment.

It is instructive to recall that the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy originated with a Democratic president, William Jefferson Clinton and that the DREAM Act was originally introduced by a Republican senator, Orrin Hatch of Utah, in 2001.

It’s also important to remember that President Obama’s Chief of Staff successfully squelched members of his party from pursuing immigration reform early in his boss’s term on the grounds that “immigration is the third rail of American politics” — and that now running to become mayor of Chicago, Rham Emanuel is scrounging for the votes of immigrants who are naturalized citizens.

Some political commentators have speculated that the Dream Act may actually fare better when the new Congress is sworn in next year. There were many original Republican proponents of the Dream Act who simply didn’t want President Obama to get credit for its passage.

For sure, politicians in both parties have played Latinos like pawns in a Machiavellian chess game and incited racial and ethnic hatred when it served their selfish, personal interests.

If there is any other lesson in today’s tawdry Senate tallies, it probably is that any family can have a gay or lesbian member, but far fewer include an undocumented youth.

Thanks to demography and the universal nature of love, that too will change over the next couple generations.