Senator John McCain’s truth-deficient campaign hit another low last Friday with a fraudulent new ad, this time about immigration.

The ad, in Spanish, accuses Senator Barack Obama and his Congressional allies of killing immigration reform.

It’s a gross distortion.

Here is an English translation:

Announcer: Obama and his Congressional allies say they are on the side of immigrants. But are they? The press reports that their efforts were “poison pills” that made immigration reform fail. The result: No guest worker program. No path to citizenship. No secure borders. No reform. Is that being on our side? Obama and his Congressional allies ready to block immigration reform, but not ready to lead. John McCain: I’m John McCain and I approve this message.



Block immigration reform? The Democrats?

Mr. Obama opposing a path to citizenship?

Welcome to the night-is-day, down-is-up, world of the McCain campaign.

Some history:

Last year’s Senate immigration bill was a big, fat compromise that had a lot in it to please both sides in the debate. Among other things, it added tough layers of enforcement at the border and in the workplace, and included a (long and torturous) path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

The bill was a right-of-center compromise. Back in the day, Mr. McCain — who once drafted a comprehensive immigration bill with Senator Edward Kennedy — would have led the charge for a bill like this. Back when he was still an independent thinker on immigration.

But by the time this bill came along, Mr. McCain was eager to win over the right-wing base of his party, which has never trusted him on immigration (or a number of other issues). Rather than continue to play the maverick, Mr. McCain largely absented himself from negotiations — and slipped meekly back into the herd.

The bill that emerged from that process was a mess. Advocates of comprehensive reform held their noses and supported it, hoping it could be improved in conference. Republicans attacked it, egged on by talk-radio hosts waging an all-out assault on what they called an “amnesty bill.”

Hundreds of amendments were proposed to kill it or improve it, depending on your point of view, and some were called “poison pills” by the “grand bargainers” who had assembled the unwieldy compromise.

So, here is what that misleading Spanish ad is referring to.

Mr. Obama supported an amendment from Senator Byron Dorgan, backed by unions, that would have phased out a guest-worker program after five years. The amendment passed, 49 to 48, but it was no poison pill.

“Not one member of Congress stood up and said, ‘I’m voting against the bill because of that Dorgan amendment,'” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, an organization supporting comprehensive immigration reform. “It’s preposterous. Not even close.”

In the end, it wasn’t that amendment or any others supported by Mr. Obama that caused the fragile coalition to fall apart. The bill was killed by Mr. McCain’s party. Its supporters were hoping to attract 25 to 30 Republican votes, but they could only round up 12, in the wake of all of those right-wing attacks.

Mr. McCain once was a moderate on immigration — and steadfast. Now he’s slippery. Marching in step with the Lou Dobbs crowd, he talks of border security first and foremost. He says he would have voted against his own McCain-Kennedy bill. He leads a party whose convention platform pushes a hard restrictionist line.

But at the same time Mr. McCain panders to Latino immigrants, in Spanish, accusing Mr. Obama of not being on “our side” — the pro-amnesty side.

Does this mean that Mr. McCain truly regrets the demise of the “path to citizenship”? That he really supports it, and will push for it harder than Mr. Obama will? Is he willing to stand up to his own party on that?

If he is, let’s hear him say so — in English, too.