CIVIL WRONGS: The Democrats are gleeful. Viewing themselves as permanent heirs to the civil rights legacy of Martin Luther King, they've been waiting in vain for an opening to reclaim that mantle. With hundreds of thousands of non-citizens parading through the streets shouting non sequiturs about their "constitutional rights," Ted Kennedy hasn't felt this powerful since he successfully slander Robert Bork. Yes, the Democrats (and the liberal mainstream media) see America's immigration crisis as an opportunity to speak for the "huddled masses" who are likened to yesterday's victims of Jim Crow racism. Will most Americans accept this deeply flawed analogy? Not if Krauthammer has anything to say about it:

Americans instinctively know the difference between these two civil rights crusades. Blacks were owed. For centuries they had been the victims of a historic national crime. The principal crime involved in the immigrant crusade is the violation of immigration laws by the illegals themselves. To be sure, that is not a high crime. But it does not behoove one who has stealthily stolen into another's house to then make demands about rights -- or to march under the banner of ``The National Day of Action for Immigrant Justice.'' Justice? On what grounds do those who come into a country illegally claim rights? They seek good will and understanding. And Americans might give it -- but on request, not on demand. Martin Luther King had a case for justice that was utterly incontrovertible, yet he always appealed to the better angels of America's nature. It is all the more important for illegals, whose claims rest not on justice but on compassion, to appeal to American generosity, openness and idealism.