The Senate created a bipartisan immigration bill. As it goes to the House many see hope, while others on both the left and right are not happy with the compromise.

Glenn Hurowitz argues that immigration is not just an issue of immigration. There are serious environmental consequences to the immigration of low wage workers, but most environmentalists have stayed out of the debate: “With environmentalists largely sitting it out, many usually pro-environment Democrats are all too happy to ignore these hidden costs of immigration as they seek to placate immigration advocates and foes alike.”

Rep. Tom Tancredo doesn’t hear his constituency calling for a compromise on immigration: “ Citizens are insisting that border security be demonstrated as an actual achievement, not simply a plan on Mr. Chertoff's desk or a ‘trigger’ in some legislative package. A new president and new Border Patrol leadership might salvage the morale and the mission of that law enforcement agency, but until that happens, the border will continue to be a sieve and our nation's security will continue to be at risk.”

James Edwards says that the Senate immigration deal is “capitulation, not compromise”: “An amnesty-guestworker program is bad anyway you look at it. Bad policy. Bad politics. Republicans: Surrender at your peril.”

The LA Times sees much hope in the new immigration bill, but worries that the Democrats will not step up to pass the legislation in the House: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi…has already expressed 'serious concerns' about the bill, and the freshman class of Democrats does not seem enthusiastic. The consequences of failure this spring would be catastrophic.”

War rhetoric is sophistry with serious consequences. These two notable pieces together unravel some of the rhetoric on both sides.

Steve Chapman traces a long history of shrewd Republican cut-and-running—from Korea and Vietnam to Lebanon, Somalia, and Kosovo. "It's terrible to lose a war. But as several Republican presidents could attest, it's even worse to persist in one you can't win."

Victor Davis Hanson says Democratic candidates who supported the war should fess' up that they weren't just duped by neo-cons and faulty intelligence—they wanted to take Saddam out, but changed their minds later when things got complicated.

Jerry Falwell died on Tuesday. He is credited with the rise of the “religious right” and their political power over the last few decades. How he will be remembered is a question open to debate.

The Washington Times pays tribute to Falwell. He may be dead, but one only has to watch the Republicans running for office to see his legacy.

Zev Chafets says that Falwell “was a born-again Christian, an American and a Republican, in that order, and if you didn't like it, well, there were plenty of other places you could spend Sunday morning.”

John Nichols is worried less by Falwell as McCain’s and other Republican’s response to Falwell’s death: “It is possible to treat Falwell with respect in death…But for McCain to heap praise on Falwell at this politically convenient moment is an embarrassing example of how the maverick of the 2000 race has become the predictable politician of the 2008 contest.”

As long as Canadians can get prescription drugs cheaper than their southern neighbors there are likely to be those in the U.S. who want to import them. Congress recently took up the issue once again and the pundits addressed the issues of free trade and big pharma.

David Sirota accuses senators from both sides of the aisle of hypocrisy. While officially rallying for free trade they're preventing millions of Americans from benefiting from it by importing safe FDA-approved medications.

Roger Bate defends the pharmaceutical companies' need to charge different prices in different countries to fund drug development and maintain presence in Third World countries to monitor drug response "A tiered model, based on ability to pay, is optimal—but will only work if the industry stands up for itself."

Kimberly Strassel argues that Americans don’t really want Canadian drugs. “Still,” she says, “don't expect the political caterwauling over imports to go away any time soon. There's still too much political upside to talking up a program that few Americans really want to use.”

The House passed new hate crimes legislation last week. The bill extends “hate crime” status to crimes motivated by the victim’s sexual orientation and provides grants for local law enforcement to investigate such crimes. The bill brings up many difficult legal questions that the pundits are plodding through.

The LA Times believes the House’s hate crimes legislation accomplishes two important goals: “It expands a key definition of hate crimes to include acts of violence inspired by a victim's sexual orientation, and it provides federal assistance to local and state law enforcement agencies seeking to prevent and prosecute hate crimes. Both are worthy refinements of existing federal law.”

George Will finds the hate crimes legislation one step down a slippery slope. What’s next, he asks, “People who wear fur or eat meat? Some writings by the killer at Virginia Tech expressed hatred of the rich, but they are not a category protected in this year's hate-crime legislation. Perhaps in next year's.”

Michael Dorf looks at the problem of “symbolic” law in the context of the recent hate crimes legislation. He concludes that “even if symbolism is sometimes a legitimate basis for legislation, too frequent reliance on symbolism risks opening the door---if only as a matter of politics---to symbolic legislation of the more dangerous sort.”

Robert McHenry wonders why we need new hate crimes legislation when most of the acts covered in the bill are already illegal. It’s our intentions that are on trial. McHenry asks, “how far are we along the road to defining thought crimes and punishing thought criminals?”

Congress and the Bush administration came together for an unprecedented agreement on U.S. trade policy. Many pundits are applauding the deal as a demonstration of bi-partisanship while others believe it is proof positive of lobbyist influence among the Democrats.

The Washington Post applauds the Bush administration for its flexibility this week. They gave the Dems what they have been wanting for fifteen years: “direct incorporation of enforceable labor and environmental rules into free-trade agreements signed by the United States.” The Post just hopes the Dems will play fair and give the Bush administration the authority to broker $10 billion in new free trade agreements.

The New York Times says that the agreement between Congress and the President “will harness America’s economic power to the cause of expanding labor rights abroad.”

David Sirota thinks the deal stinks. It proves that Pelosi is no populist and that she is willing to push aside the labor friendly members of her party to make lobbyists happy.

The AFL-CIO Blog reserves judgment on the deal. It has its upsides, but AFL-CIO president John Sweeny is skeptical: The bill “fails to adequately address issues related to the outsourcing of U.S. jobs and the ability of foreign corporations to challenge U.S. laws, among others.”

Nina Easton reports in Fortune on what went into brokering the deal and assesses what it means for business.