In your post on McCain and immigration, below, John, you write that “McCain’s promise [to forswear an amnesty] has to be bankable….I repeat: there has to be a deal.”

What would you consider “bankable?” How could conservatives cut “a deal” with a presidential candidate? McCain could look his audience in the eye at CPAC later this week and issue a promise, and his audience could applaud, suspiciously; but beyond that, what could he, or we, do? To put the question slightly differently, what would it take to satisfy you that McCain had at last come reliably around–emphasis on “reliably?”

Since everyone’s blood has been running high these last days, let me stress that I do not mean this query as tendentious in any way whatsoever. I just have the sinking feeling that, even if (as I suspect) McCain proves willing to work hard to convince conservatives that he has indeed, as he puts it, “learned my lesson,” there really won’t be much he could do at this point that conservatives would find persuasive.

Please do tell me I’m mistaken.