Some Senate Republicans want to follow the House proposal to build the fence, while others (including Larry Craig and Arlen Specter) prefer the president's "comprehensive" approach that would build a fence while feeding "guest workers" to companies that presently hire undocumented aliens. The Senate debate begins today. Republicans hope to fashion some sort of compromise so they can tell voters who have been riled up by Lou Dobbs that they've averted a crisis.

On the Democratic side:

[Sen. Diane] Feinstein said she supports the fencing because "the border is a sieve." She also said that Democrats are not going to let Republicans best them politically on this issue. "This is all meant to box Democrats into voting no," she said. "And we're not going to fall for it."

That'll show 'em. Support a stupid plan to preempt complaints that Democrats are "soft on illegals." This is the same reasoning that may cause some Democrats to sell out the Constitution by voting to give the president the power to subject tortured detainees to unfair trials or the power to wiretap Americans at will.

Get a spine, Sen. Feinstein.

Meanwhile, fence supporters seem to have forgotten that Native American tribal reservations are, in effect, sovereign nations, and that the U.S. government may not have the power to run a fence through the back yards of reservation inhabitants. It turns out that the Tohono O'odham Indian territory is in the path of the proposed fence, in an area frequently traveled by undocumented entrants.

Tribal members, however, fearing the symbolism of a solid wall and concern about the free range of deer, wild horses, coyotes, jackrabbits and other animals they regard as kin, said they would fight the kind of steel-plated fencing that Congress had in mind and that has slackened the crossing flow in previous hot spots like San Diego.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down!