Kari - not only does this seem like piling on, but it's especially unhelpful in the wake of the passage of the draconian employer sanctions measure in Columbia County.

It's one thing to delight in the hypocrisies of political opponents - but it's another to do so at the expense of progressive policies and on the backs of the most vulnerable. The DSCC spots attacking Smith using the "illegal immigrant" wedge were shameful - and really stood out in this election since the Presidential campaigns generally avoided this issue.

But gloating over this isn't just morally obtuse it's politically obtuse as well. As Ruy Teixeira discussed at a CAP event this morning, the election results show that not only does America want change, but America is changing. In swing state after swing state (for example, NV, CO, NM) Democrats won because the vote share of Latinos is growing markedly.

By playing into the whole punitive anti-"illegal immigrant" argument you're not only distracting from the increasingly urgent need to address this in a comprehensive framework, you're also shooting yourself in your political foot. And as we debate this, word is coming of large scale layoffs in Columbia County (not to mention ICE raids that took place last week). Smith is history – but real working families are being hurt.

Dan, I couldn't possibly disagree more. Not only is this totally newsworthy but it's NOT anti-immigrant in the least.

At issue isn't whether illegal immigrants ought to have it easier or harder, rather the issue revolves 100% around Gordon Smith's honesty with Oregonians.

Uh, so Willamette Week (and Kari)...how does the above mean Smith wasn't being truthful? In what appears to be an answer about the difficulties in proper verification, Smith cites something that happened in 2005. WWeek tries to say he's lying by reporting on an audit from 2000.

Where does Smith say the ONLY people who've ever been directed to be fired, were the three from 2005? Yet both WWeek and Kari call him "untruthful" based on a response to a specific question Smith did not appear to have been asked (or was answering). Am I wrong? Was Lars in fact directly asking Smith how many people he's had to fire for immigration violations?

I don't agree with Dan all the way that there were equal shares of demagoguery on this issue, but I was VERY disappointed to see the DSCC rely on the lame phrase "illegal immigrant," when the correct term is undocumented alien. As Smith himself points out, you're not automatically illegal just because you're undocumented.

Cue the Dem Party sycophants who prefer point scoring to accuracy of charges, thanking me for my support of Smith. I voted for Merkley, as I promised I would. I am SO glad to see Smith go. But this immigration attack has been a trope from the get-go, attempting to paint Smith as a hypocrite or lawbreaker, as opposed to merely sloppy (even conveniently sloppy, although the lack of due dilligence still hasn't stuck).

An undocumented alien is, by definition, an illegal immigrant because it's against the law to enter the United States willy nilly.

Now... we can argue whether those laws are good, bad or indifferent. But the fact remains that they are what they are and, in fact, an undocumented alien = an illegal immigrant.

That said - if refusing to play fucktarded and intellectually vacuous word games makes me a sycophant then I'll be more than happy to have it tattooed on my fucking forehead.

"An undocumented alien is, by definition, an illegal immigrant because it's against the law to enter the United States willy nilly."

Another misconception--when we talk about undocumented aliens, we're talking about Mexican/Hispanic people coming across the border without papers. As many as half of all undocumenteds entered the country LEGALLY.

To be undocumented can be as simple as waiting months for the federal government to process your visa, while your previous visa has expired. If you would like to refer to the Indian executive at Microsoft making 200 grand while waiting for his temporary work visa to be converted to a permanent green card an "illegal immigrant," you would be correct under the very strictest of definitions--but quite clearly that's not who anyone is referring to in this discussion, and the authorities would not be considering them an actionable case.

And I think the tattoo would be overkill, Kevin. You've changed your Kool-Aid color from red to blue, but your lips are permanently stained either way.

I see - so you're saying mass deportation is a progressive strategy? And eliminating jobs to accomplish that? What a great economic development strategy.

TJ, I agree with Dan P. about the repulsiveness of the DSCC ads and most of the rest of what he wrote, and would note that one of the problems with draconian employer sanctions is that it creates an incentive for discrimination on the basis of race/ethnicity against legal residents.

Also I agree with you that it's wrong to call Smith untruthful if he wasn't.

But I read what is happening differently. Kari is relying entirely on WW's reporting, and as is his wont, putting what they say in stronger terms by reducing the truth question to a binary logical choice, apparently for partisan advantage motives.

So WW says "less than entirely truthful" which Kari makes into "untruthful." This is formally correct if you say it's either A=truthful (means 100% truthful) or /A=untruthful (means any degree of truthfulness less than 100%).

However, if the question should actually be something more like, was hiring undocumented workers illegally a regular nod & wink practice at Smith's business, or something that happened sometimes due to laxness / willingness to tolerate occasional illegal hiring to meet labor demand but not S.O.P. (as, for comparison, at the kosher meat plant in Iowa much in the news recently), then Kari's framing shifts the focus in a way that moves us away from ability to get closest to truth.

However, your parsing of what WW wrote does not seem right to me.

Smith told conservative radio host Lars Larson the senator's company once had had to fire three workers because federal authorities said they were not permitted to work in the United States. Here's that statement:

</b>It was two years ago.</b></i>

Once again, I am substantially impressed with the intelligence and thought that both Chris Lowe and Dan Petegorsky bring to this blog - even when (and in some ways, especially because) they're calling me "politically and morally obtuse" and "petty and exaggerated".

And yet, there are still trolls here who think that I write everything written by all of our contributors, and that BlueOregon is a single-minded borg unable to break out of a single-minded partisanship.

Dan and Chris, at least, prove otherwise.

Thank you.

Dan's mind I am just beginning to be familiar with

It's a losing battle; trust me - I've been trying for decades.

And, yes, that was a gracious note, Kari - especially rare when we get into this topic. Appreciated.

Rebecca - you a Mose Allison fan?

Ooops - wrong link! That was supposed to go to "Lost Mind."

While agreeing about Kari's graciousness, thanks Kari, for the record, I didn't say I think you're petty, just that I think sometimes your rhetorical choices don't work as well for you as others might, and leave substantial points open to dismissal because you frame them in exaggerated ways that seem pretty obviously so to many readers, which leads into motives speculation, e.g. is this just petty partisanship?

But, of course, they are your rhetorical choices to make, and I suppose have a connection on some occasions at least to your "liveliness" criterion for what you'd like BlueOregon blog to be.

Along the same lines, the folks who make you out to be the discourse-controlling svengali of BlueOregon, with all of the rest of us your mere puppet minions, despite manifest evidence to the contrary, are engaged in obvious and not believable exaggeration.

it's important to finally close the loop on one of the biggest controversies of the Senate race.

And how have we closed this loop?

What are we to do with the illegal/undocumented/immigrants/workers/braceros (now there was a word) who work in our canneries, restaurants, meat packing plants, hotels and front yards?

Shame on those who exploit these workers, whether for their labor or for their own political advantage.