O-and-Savior Goes All "Comprehensive"

Lemmeesee, heah.

When McCain had his butt handed to him on "comprehensive immigration reform" he (at least rhetorically) shifted gears. After all, he had a primary to win.

Obama, on the other hand, didn't highlight his dedication to the very same thing.

Until Wednesday night.

Barack Obama spoke on Wednesday night about a subject that often gets short shrift on the 2008 campaign trail: immigration. The Democratic candidate made the speech to a crowd of Hispanic leaders at black-tie dinner capping the end of a Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute gathering in Washington.

After spending a few minutes talking about his opponent and his other policy proposals, Obama got his loudest cheers with these lines: “This election is about the 12 million people living in the shadows, the communities taking immigration enforcement into their own hand. They are counting on us to stop the hateful rhetoric filling our airwaves, and rise above the fear, and rise above the demagoguery, and finally enact comprehensive immigration reform.”

(Can anyone discern the actual meaning of the red-highlighted sentence? He must have lost his telepromter feed...)

Obama ended his speech with the words “si se puede,” the Spanish version of his campaign chant “yes we can.” His words were not so much a translation as much as a return to a native tongue — the phrase was used widely in Spanish before Obama adopted it, most often for protest marches and demonstrations.

We'll see about that, puede.