The President's speech tonight on immigration is, in a word, huge. Conservatives are looking at it as one last chance for Bush to step up to the plate and put enforcement at the forefront of the debate, but from what's been leaked to the press so far it doesn't look like that's going to happen. A few thousand National Guard troops on temporary duty assisting Border Patrol officers falls so far short of the mark it's arguably worse than proposing nothing at all.

We'll have to wait and see what's in the actual speech, but if Bush doesn't offer a serious, credible pitch for securing the border, by the end of the week he'll be thinking back wistfully to the days when his approval rating was up in the mid-thirties.

It's ironic that Bush grabbed ahold of the traditional "3rd rail" of American politics and didn't get zapped (though he didn't succeed in getting Social Security reform, either) but he's quite possibly going to find himself getting scorched by the new third rail.