You had me at hello, Barry.

Speaking before the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Gala, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., blasted Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., for not including comprehensive immigration reform in his party’s platform.

“And when it came time to write his party’s platform, comprehensive reform never made it in,” Obama said before the institution’s annual gala in Washington, D.C. “So, you’ve got to ask yourself: if Sen. McCain won’t stand up to opponents of reform at his own convention, how can you trust him to stand up for change in Washington?”…

“When he was running for his party’s nomination, he abandoned his stance, and said he wouldn’t even support his own legislation if it came up for a vote,” Obama said to the audience. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I think it’s time for a president who won’t walk away from comprehensive immigration reform when it becomes politically unpopular.”

Note how careful he is to stress that McCain only “abandoned” his stance (which he never quite did) during the primaries. Quite so; with the start of the general election, he was back onboard the amnesty bandwagon. Man, was he ever. Fully 69% of the public wants the borders secured before we turn to the important business of amnestizing tens of millions of violations of American immigration law — up from 63% in June, do note — but darned if both our candidates don’t have their hearts set on a comprehensive solution. The key difference between them, apparently? McCain will at least pay lip service to taking care of the borders first.

Awfully unsporting of Barry to knock him over the GOP’s platform, though. Doubtless it was only through Team Maverick’s intervention that a statement of opposition to comprehensive reform was omitted. Exit question one: Is Kaus right? A 50% chance of amnesty under McCain versus a 20% chance under Obama? And exit question two: What’s going to happen when Charlie Gibson asks Palin how she feels about amnesty and she looks in the camera and starts mouthing the old, stomach-churning Maverick-ian platitudes about what it means to be a “true friend” to Hispanics? Second look at Fred!