Not quite true — in fact, the court told Arizona that they’ve gone too far in trying to do the feds’ job for them — but Brewer’s spinning it precisely the right way to maximize political effect. No matter how many lawsuits the state loses and no matter what grounds it may lose on, the takeaway for most of the public will be that the federal government is now actually using the courts to prevent enforcement of its own immigration laws. Which means that every legal step, regardless of the outcome, is a political win for border enforcement. Arizona’s law was never going to stop border crossings on its own, but the angrier voters get at seeing the feds side with illegals in court, the greater the pressure will be on Congress to take serious enforcement measures along the entire border — which, of course, is the ideal solution. In fact, sometimes I wonder how many people in the Arizona legislature voted for it for exactly that reason, not because it’ll reduce the illegal population in any dramatic way but because it backs the feds into a corner on border security that they really can’t escape from. As a strategic matter, The One would have been better off letting the statute go into effect and then waiting to see if some high-profile instance of abuse happened which he could exploit politically to get the public back on his side. Instead, this. Oh well. At a moment when he and the left must be frantic to pander to amnesty shills in order to shore up their sliding polling with Latinos, passing this thing was a brilliant way to hold them in check. On to the appeal.

Update: Readers are noting that this was a preliminary injunction and therefore the next step’s not an appeal but rather a full hearing. True enough; my mistake. Given the ruling here, they’ll probably lose at trial and then there’ll be an appeal, but like I say, the outcome in these cases is secondary.

Update: Say what you will about Tingles, but the broken clock is on time here.

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