Feinstein: Why Not Just Let Them All Stay?

Sen. Diane Feinstein proposed taking out the 3-tiered approach in the Senate bill whereby illegal residents here for at least 5 years have a more favored "path to citizenship", 2 to 4 years a slightly more difficult path, and others would have to return.

"I have come to believe that the three-tiered system is unworkable, that it would create a bureaucratic nightmare and it would lead to substantial fraud," she said.

She's right, of course, absolutely right, and so she gets points for honesty. Very few illegal immigrants will have any proof of how long they've been in the country, and so either rampant fraud or absurdly lenient standards will prevail. Just imagine the sob stories we will be treated to on the nightly news:

Des Moines(AP) - Mother to face deportation. A young mother who has been in this country for 5 1/2 years may have to leave the country and her young daughter due to a paperwork foulup. She believed the money she paid every month for her electric bill was being sent to the power company, but it appears..."

Oh it's going to be brutal. Americans can handle alot - thousands of casualties in a futile war, mining disasters, destructive tornados, ruinous floods - but whiny lectures from sanctimonious reporters about how heartless we are - that's too much to bear.