Here's more evidence of the decline of the conservative movement: the fact that young campus righties are now devising stunts that are both deeply offensive and tediously nerdy.

Consider this:

The College Republicans at Penn State University wanted to enter the debate about the nation's borders by playing a "Catch an Illegal Immigrant Game."

People would be invited to "catch" group members wearing orange shirts symbolizing illegal aliens.

Amid the student outcry that ensued, they softened their plan to an illegal immigration awareness day in which leafleting and speech-making would let both sides air their views on immigration policies.

But that hasn't entirely erased the bad feeling over the campus event, now planned for Wednesday....

A "Catch an Illegal Immigrant Game"? It sure sounds repellent. What would be involved? Would the people playing "immigrants" pretend to be scared Mexicans? Would people be encouraged to rough them up and handcuff them and throw them in vans?

Er, not exactly, if the game had been played the way it was last year at North Texas State:

Three Young Conservatives members walked around campus wearing bright orange t-shirts with the words "Illegal Immigrant" on the front and "Catch me if u can" on the back for the game. People were encouraged to find these members and ask them why the organization does not support Bush's plan. The plan grants amnesty to immigrants with a job or job offer lasting for three years.....

Wow -- it's boring and it's racist. It's the worst of both worlds!

Lefties were really good at campus agitation in the sixties and early seventies, but by my (late-seventies) college years we'd become earnest and dull. The righties who came along shortly afterward were racist pigs, but they tried to amuse (and if you were a racist, they succeeded; Ann Coulter, of course, is still playing the same riffs two decades later).

Now it looks as if righties are the dullards again. Meanwhile, Scalia went to UConn and gay law students staged a kiss-in. That's much better -- provocative, to the point, and entertaining.