I Don't Understand

Marc Ambinder writes that John McCain "embraced this ungainly, 4000 page compromise – a product of the Ag Lobby, a weakened White House, Ted Kennedy, Jon Kyl’s best efforts, the quiet help of the Chamber of Commerce, the pragmatic acquiescence of Latino and immigration rights groups." He also writes that McCain did it because "That idea – that there is amid the gloom and pork and interest-group steel traps of Washington a spark of civility that could, with the right amount of kindling, fuel a grand compromise – really gets him in the gut."

Something doesn't compute here. How does an ungainly compromise produced by the Ag lobby, a weakened White House, Ted Kennedy and John Kyl, with the quiet help of the Chamber of Commerce and the acquiescence of Latino groups constitute an alternative to "the gloom and pork and interest-group steel traps of Washington"? If anything, the bill's failed because it relied too much on interest group brokerage. Polling seemed to indicate that the compromise package was much less popular than its component parts; by seeking to please all interest groups, the negotiators wound up with a bill where most people disliked the parts they disliked more than they liked the parts they liked.