Kaus on McCain
28th January 2008
Read it. Not a pretty sight, but a useful reminder.
McCain seems to have conned a lot of Republicans into thinking he’s transformed his position on immigration–for example, Victor Davis Hanson, author of “Mexifornia,” who now writes about “McCain’s won’t-make-that-mistake-again changed views on closing the border.” This even though it’s obvious to anyone paying attention that McCain hasn’t altered his ultimate support for legalization of illegals (once he’s declared the border “secure”). One reason we know this is because he’s said it–he said it again on Meet the Press yesterday, when asked if he’d sign the McCain-Kennedy “comprehensive” immigration bill as president if it came to his desk. Answer: “Yeah.” If somebody like Hernandez, as McCain also said yesterday, “supports my policies and my proposals,” it serves to emphasize that those policies may not have changed as much as cheap dates like Hanson seem to believe. Hernandez’s own Web site features an article describing him as “passionately” advocating legalization of “all Mexican workers in the U.S.” [What about McCain’s statement that: “I will not allow anyone to receive Social Security or any other benefits because they have come here illegally and broken our laws”?–ed Obvious BS. If he offers legalization to the “12 million” who are here they will clearly get benefits from having come here illegally–the benefit of being here legally, for one. Medicaid, Medicare, and public schooling for another. People who came here illegally would also immediately qualify for Social Security benefits as soon as they got the quickie “probationary” Z-visa under McCain’s bill. The only way McCain’s statement would make sense is if he was also planning to offer these benefits to everyone who didn’t cross the border–i.e. the entire population of Mexico. … Actually, that doesn’t seem too far from Dr. Hernandez’s philosophy. … You don’t think …]