The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal smokes crack right before your eyes.

The number of words before they use "illegal" is telling.

From OpinionJournal:

As Congress battles over immigration, the consequences are likely to be far greater than the details of border walls or green cards. The most important political outcome may turn out to be the message that Republicans send about the kind of the party they are and hope to be.

Politics are what got us into this mess in the first place, morons.

To wit, do Republicans want to continue in the Reagan tradition of American optimism and faith in assimilation that sends a message of inclusiveness to all races? Or will they take another one of their historical detours into a cramped, exclusionary policy that tells millions of new immigrants, and especially Hispanics, that they belong somewhere else?

What is optimistic about refusing to have borders in any meaningful sense of the word? I suggest reading a lot of history. And soon.

Admittedly that paints with a broad brush, but politics is often about broad symbolism, and this is roughly the Republican choice presented by President Bush's approach on the one hand, and that of Tom Tancredo and his platoon of talk-show hosts and Tory columnists on the other.

Let us quickly say that not every American concerned about immigration is part of the latter group. The breadth of new immigration, legal and illegal, in recent years has literally changed the face of America. Our own view is that this has been mostly for the better--in revitalized inner cities, a younger workforce to fuel a dynamic economy, and in general helping America avoid the senescent future of other industrial nations.

There is nothing dynamic about 12 million lawbreakers who are not assimilating because they are "protected" from the forces of Americanization by Leviathan's socialist agenda.

Remember the good old days, kiddies, when the WSJ stood for freedom and free markets? It is now little more than a shill for creeping slavery.

James Taranto, call your office.