This Is What It Sounds Like When The Doves Cry

Rumors of a coming "conservative crackup" have been much exaggerated in recent years, usually fueled by members of the media eager to exploit the slightest hint of conflict and perhaps engaging in a little wishful thinking as well.

But if the recent fallout from the immigration bill is any indication, we may now actually be on the precipice of a major schism within the ranks of the conservative movement. When you've got the editorial page bigwigs from The Wall Street Journal and the editors of National Review going at each other with hammers and tongs (actually most of the hammer throwing is being done by the WSJ crew), you know that the we've reached a critical point.

At Opinion Journal, Peggy Noonan believes that Bush's immigration push has already torn the conservative coalition asunder(free for all):

What political conservatives and on-the-ground Republicans must understand at this point is that they are not breaking with the White House on immigration. They are not resisting, fighting and thereby setting down a historical marker--"At this point the break became final." That's not what's happening. What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them. What President Bush is doing, and has been doing for some time, is sundering a great political coalition. This is sad, and it holds implications not only for one political party but for the American future.

The White House doesn't need its traditional supporters anymore, because its problems are way beyond being solved by the base. And the people in the administration don't even much like the base. Desperate straits have left them liberated, and they are acting out their disdain. Leading Democrats often think their base is slightly mad but at least their heart is in the right place. This White House thinks its base is stupid and that its heart is in the wrong place.

For almost three years, arguably longer, conservative Bush supporters have felt like sufferers of battered wife syndrome. You don't like endless gushing spending, the kind that assumes a high and unstoppable affluence will always exist, and the tax receipts will always flow in? Too bad! You don't like expanding governmental authority and power? Too bad. You think the war was wrong or is wrong? Too bad.

But on immigration it has changed from "Too bad" to "You're bad."

She goes on to say:

Now conservatives and Republicans are going to have to win back their party. They are going to have to break from those who have already broken from them.

With Republican prospects in 2008 already looking grim, the timing of this split within conservative ranks could not be worse. Welcome back to the wilderness.

UPDATE: A few more thoughts upon further reflection.

At the heart of the immigration divide is the problem that the "Republican Future" which the Bush administration believes they are trying to build is not the future that the current Republican base wants.

President Bush has now managed to put himself in the unenviable political position of simultaneously being on the outs with the Left (who have despised him since day one) and now the Right (at least a good part of it). This of course is the muddled middle ground that media types like to claim stake to when they throw out the defense, "I get criticized from the Left and the Right, which means I must be doing something right." No, it probably just means that you're wrong.

UPDATE II: More from the Never-ending Apes, Freedom Dogs, and Vox Day, who nobly resists the temptation to say "I told you so" (not).