Disagreement and delay over an as yet unreleased proposal

Harry Reid has pushed the deadline for debate on immigration legislation a bit, to Wednesday. He received a letter from Senators McCain and Specter (ImmigrationProf Blog has a PDF) asking for more time, and informal warnings that if he pushed forward with last year’s McCain-Kennedy bill, that Republicans would filibuster it. Yes, that’s right, many (like McCain himself) would filibuster the exact same bill they voted for (and in his case, co-sponsored!) last year.

Apparently there are closed door meetings (the media calls them “secret,” which makes it sound like they have dead drops, codes, and safe houses—imagine Ted Kennedy doing all that) going on, with senators on both sides and Michael Chertoff representing the White House. I wonder, though, if this is happening, why Reid has so many ants in his pants. If there is in fact some possibility of coming up with a proposal, then give them a few more days.

All this drama, of course, is just to introduce a proposal. Then the real circus will begin.