Today Pat Buchanan skewers Republican Study Committee Chairman Mike Pence with a column that is critical of the conservative leader's immigration reform plan. Buchanan calls Pence's plan "stealth amnesty" and calls instead for among other things border security:

The crucial steps are these. Build a fence along the 2,000-mile border to stop the flood. End welfare benefits to illegal aliens, except emergency medical treatment. Vigorously prosecute employers who hire illegals. Cease granting automatic citizenship to "anchor babies" of illegals who sneak across the border to have them. Take care of mother and child, then put them on a bus back home.
Nowhere in his column does Buchanan acknowledge that the Pence plan is a border security first proposal. Indeed, a key provision of the Pence plan puts a two year wait on implementing a guest worker program while the border is being securied, fence and all. After that waiting period, the Department of Homeland Security is required to certify the security of the border. Essentially, this provision is identical to the Isakson amendment that failed in the Senate. That amendment was lauded by conservatives of all stripes and its defeat signaled the end of any conservative support for the Senate McKennedy bill.

Buchanan gets nastier, sinking so low as to call Mike Pence a traitor to the conservative cause:

In "The Godfather," Don Corleone warns his son Michael that, after he dies, someone inside the family will come to Michael with an offer of peace from the Barzinis, who murdered Michael's brother. Whoever brings you the offer, Don Corleone warns his son, will have betrayed you. Tessio, lifetime friend and high-ranking captain of the Corleones, comes to Michael with Barzini's offer. A mistake.

Rep. Mike Pence appears to have accepted the Tessio role in the great immigration battle of 2006.

Buchanan says that the adoption of the Pence plan will mark "the end of Mike Pence as a rising star of the GOP."

Speaking of Godfathers, who made Pat Buchanan the Godfather of the conservative movement? Since when did he get to decide who was a rising star and who was not?

Perhaps somebody should inform Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich that they are no longer welcome in the conservative tent. After that, someone should tell Quin Hillyer over at the American Spectator that his service in the cause of the conservative movement is no longer needed as well. After all, how could a guy who thinks the Pence plan is "ingenious" be a real conservative? Hillyer writes:

"There are plenty of other details to the Pence plan, but suffice it to say that as conservatives study the plan, they continue to find that just about every question is answered and every base covered, and all according to principles conservatives hold dear. Read it for yourself to see...

"In short, the plan is ingenious. Not only should conservatives rally behind it, but so should the White House. It provides the president with a near-perfect escape from the rock-and-hard-place dilemma of trying to please, all at once, Hispanics, big business, and the mainstream Americans who insist that the first requirement of a guest is that the guest abide by our society's laws.

"Such insistence is absolutely the right thing. But it doesn't, by any means, require that Americans fail to exhibit our usual humaneness, nor does it require that we keep necessary jobs unfilled.

"In sum, the Pence bill offers security and prosperity in equal measure. You can't beat that."

Conservatives should be weary of the Buchananites who are methodically preparing to call any immigration reform agreement a betrayal. It seems to me that those who would cast overboard one of the conservative movements brightest hopes for the future over a disagreement about immigration policy care more about their own opinions and the forceful projection thereof than they do about conservatism.

It is not yet clear how Congress will settle this issue. As it looks right now, there is a chance that nothing at all will happen. Or perhaps an eventual compromise will emerge. And yes, maybe it will resemble the Pence plan. If it does, I can think of few other current members of Congress who have earned the consideration of conservatives.