One perhaps overlooked part of Hillary Clinton's wishy-washy non-answer to the question concerning driver's licenses for illegal aliens concerns this:

[New York governor Eliot Spitzer is] making an honest effort to [bring illegal aliens "out of the shadows"]. We should have passed immigration reform.

The "reform" she mentions wouldn't solve the problem. "Reform" will send a loud message to millions and millions around the world that our immigration laws mean nothing, and they'll respond by trying to come here illegally.

So, even if "reform" were to pass, New York would still have plenty of new illegal aliens (encouraged to come here by "reform") as well as those who were there before reform but who weren't covered by it for one reason or another or who didn't want to take advantage of it. Obviously, if we had real debates she would have been called on her implication that "reform" would completely resolved the issue rather than making it far worse.

On a related note, Hillary has found a defender in none other than Jonathan Singer of MyDD.com [1]. Since that site has deleted a few comments I left there I'm not going to bother helping them understand how they're wrong, but I sincerely wish them the best of luck:

No doubt this isn't the most popular move at this juncture. But with a bit of explanation and political capital (and real capital) invested in making the argument, I think there are a lot of people -- particularly the large proportion of Americans in favor of a path to legalization or citizenship for illegal immigrants -- who could be swayed. And even for those whose positions are particularly hardened at this point so that they would not be swayed, it's not clear to me that the issue is salient enough to make them change their mind about a presidential election when other issues like Iraq, Iran, the economy and healthcare continue to loom large.

No. Please. Don't do it. Supporting driver's licenses for illegal aliens - and doing so in a loud way involving lots of political capital - is the thing that I most fear. It would drive millions of Americans to vote Democrat. No. Please. Don't do it.

I also note that past Singer posts at MyDD have been sponsored by AFSCME [2] and SEIU [3]. No one appears to have picked up the tab for his brilliant advice above.

[1] mydd.com/story/2007/10/31/141810/86
[2] mydd.com/story/2007/2/21/14555/2059
[3] mydd.com/story/2007/3/24/115150/071