I don’t think there’s too much point in hiding that I think the proposed immigration bill is a potential disaster on par with New Coke, the XFL, Gigli and Jar-Jar Binks.

Having said that, more than one of Romney’s rivals has been pointing out that the former Massachusetts governor was saying in November 2005 that McCain’s proposals were ”quite different” from amnesty. Now he says that the proposal before Congress, because of the Z-visas, ”If that’s not a form of amnesty, I don’t know what is.”

Now, I don’t care that Romney sounded different, or had different stands, in 1994 or 2002 when running for office in Massachusetts. As his supporters point out, the Senate race was thirteen years ago, and the gubernatorial race was five years ago. Times change, and a political figure is entitled to change his mind when new facts come to light. But his immigration comments are from about eighteen months ago. I think Romney’s stand is right, but the different tone in his comments adds to the all the flip-flopper stuff.

And while my first instinct is that ABC News puts a bit too much faith in a secondhand comment from a Jeb Bush ally supporting McCain, we can figure that if Jeb Bush wasn’t bothered by Romney’s stand on the deal, he would have told ABC the comment did not accurately describe his views.

Meanwhile, Rudy has set down his criteria for an immigration bill: “Giuliani has said he is willing to compromise on legalizing illegal immigrants, but only if the bill requires tamperproof ID cards and a database of foreigners.”

The big enchilada question, no pun intended: If tamper-proof IDs and a database get added to this bill in the Senate, will Rudy back it and put himself in the same boat with McCain?

The follow up question: Does John McCain have a huge incentive to put tamper-proof IDs and a database provisions in the bill, in order to put Rudy on the spot?