McCain spins like a top on immigration flip-flop

May 24, 2008

John McCain’s incoherence on immigration policy has quickly gone from problematic to humiliating. The poor guy has spun himself into a box he can’t seem to get out of.

Just Thursday, in a relatively high-profile speech in California, McCain went back to the position he’d given up to win the Republican nomination. McCain boasted about having worked with Ted Kennedy and said, “[W]e must enact comprehensive immigration reform. We must make it a top agenda item.” McCain went on to take an anti-deportation position on immigrants already in the U.S. who entered the country illegally, saying “they are also God’s children, and we have to do it in a human and compassionate fashion.”

Soon after, far-right activists were apoplectic, especially given McCain’s repeated assurances during the primaries that he’d given on a “comprehensive” approach to immigration reform. So, the day after his speech, McCain reversed course yet again.

McCain’s campaign, however, quickly pandered to the right wing. The National Review’s Jim Geraghty reports that the campaign said McCain’s statement on the priority of immigration reform was “poorly worded“:

“Team McCain tells me the senator’s comments were poorly worded. There’s been no discussion within the campaign of altering their stance on illegal immigration, and as far as everyone on the campaign is concerned, the policy is still, ‘secure the border first.'”

This doesn’t make a lick of sense. On Thursday, McCain was talking to a group of business leaders who liked McCain’s original approach to comprehensive legislation, and the senator sought input on how best to rally support for his own bill (which he now says he’d vote against). On Friday, McCain told opponents of his immigration bill that he didn’t mean any of what he’d just said.

This is more than just a shameless flip-flop; it’s quickly becoming a character flaw. He’ll shovel whichever nonsense he has to say to please which ever audience happens to be in front of him at the time.

For those keeping score at home, McCain does not support “comprehensive immigration reform.”

Nearly all of these, by the way, come from the last six months.

Truth be told, in terms of my issue priorities, immigration reform is relatively low. But I know for Republicans, it’s among the most important issues, if not the most important domestic policy issue. And yet, here’s the Republican nominee, running on a platform of consistency, shifting with the wind and changing his position from day to day.

I get the sense the media establishment is prepared to give McCain a pass on this, but are Republican voters?

May 24, 2008 at 11:45 am

Off course he can flip-flop – shillary is providing the distractions, catapulting kkkarl rove’s lies and being the choice or rish limbaugh.

shillary is setting up a stolen election with her talking points and mcclame has a free pass to lie and convolute which also provides the cover. After a stolen election, MSM can cherry pick the many different positions that he has taken to justify an “energized base”.

But rather than focus on the dishonesty of mcclame – shillary wants to call for Obama’s assassination.

So why does McCain still have the “maverick” and “straight-talker” reputation?

I’m sure the authoritarians AKA Republicans, will still line up behind their leader…

So why does McCain still have the “maverick” and “straight-talker” reputation?

Because shillary is so busy sliming Obama and making frontpage news for it, that mcclame is able to tell a different lie to each and every group he talks to without any coverage at all.

And her latest, “I need to be sliming Obama with kkkarl rove’s lies because he might get assassinated” is going to guarantee the MSM does not hold mcclame accountable for his lies for quite some time now.

And shillary will be spewin’ more crap come Tuesday.

His position on immigration might explain why he’s not doing so well in his own home state. It’s kind of funny actually, he’s damned either way. Does he want to lose republican support or possible Hispanic support in places like Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada…?

Yes, McCain’s comments were “poorly worded.” Everyone knows that only white people and heterosexuals are “God’s children.” The rest are only God’s stepchildren, which don’t count.

I get the sense the media establishment is prepared to give McCain a pass on this, but are Republican voters?

Screw the media establishment. The only way Democrats are going to win in November is if they understand that the corporate-controlled media jettisoned the concept of journalistic integrity long ago.

There are two way to get the corporate-controlled media to pay attention to an issue. The first is to go the way of the Swift Boat Liars and produce commercials that make charges so outrageous that the corporate-controlled media’s desire for the ratings that a nasty fight generates will override their inclination to defend the “conventional wisdom” that they, themselves, have helped create.

The other way is to borrow from the late, great Paul Wellstone and produce commercials that are so entertaining that the corporate-controlled media will have to talk about them because the commercials have become part of the popular culture.

My suggestion is to combine the two methods:

Open with a speeded up film clip of John Kerry windsurfing back and forth with a voiceover that says:

In 2004 Republicans made “flip-flopping” a crime . . . worse than conspiring with oil executives, worse than running up record-shattering deficits and worse than sending American soldiers into battle without a plan and without adequate body armor. How times have changed….

Clip of McCain supporting “comprehensive immigration reform”.

Clip where he doesn’t.

Clip where he does.

Clip where he doesn’t.

Show a head shot of John McCain spinning rapidly with a voiceover:

John McCain . . . he even flip flops about flip-flopping.

If “libertarian” Bob Barr talks tough on illegal immigration, he will draw a lot of votes that would otherwise go to McCain. This is a real hot-button issue, even in places (like here) where it’s more a theoretical problem than an actual one.

Little bear: shillary, mclame, kkkarl. We get it. Very cute. How old are you? 14?

Steve T, Or how about something like Stephen Colbert’s debates against himself.

xDanp said:
Steve T, Or how about something like Stephen Colbert’s debates against himself.

Even as confused by incipient senility as McCain gets, somehow, I doubt he’d cooperate.

What do you expect from a candidate who is too stupid to realize that open borders and unlimited immigration will destory the chances of any conservative party. Anyone who wants smaller government, lower taxes, and less spending would be opposed to open borders. McCain is too stupid to realize that.

McCains’s position change also shows that sucking up to Democrats just does not work. The Democrats want open borders and unlimited immigration because it increases the number of automatic Democratic voters, increases the demand for government workers, and increases the size of the government. That unlimited immgiration makes healthcare reform, reducing emission, reduicng sprawl, helping the environment, reducing crime, and improving schools much harder to impossible seems to be ignored by Democrats.

The same that I’d expect from a commenter who’s too stupid to realize that Big Business LOVES illegal workers. And who’s too stupid to realize that Republicans LOVE big government with high spending…just as long as they’re the ones who control the government and where the spending goes. And who’s too stupid to realize that Republicans only want to lower taxes for the ultra-rich (ie, the top 0.01%), and clearly have no problem shifting the tax burden to our children.

Such commenters are too stupid to realize that the Republicans have been using them for years, and will continue to use them forever. And the reason why is because true conservatism is extremely unpopular, which is why they’ll never have a political party that will ever represent them. And the reason why is because there IS no real conservative agenda beyond a smoke & mirror campaign which tricks them into believing that their own personal beliefs are shared by anyone else. They aren’t.

superdestroyer said:
Anyone who wants smaller government, lower taxes, and less spending would be opposed to open borders. McCain is too stupid to realize that….

That unlimited immgiration makes healthcare reform, reducing emission, reduicng sprawl, helping the environment, reducing crime, and improving schools much harder to impossible seems to be ignored by Democrats.

I don’t know of anyone who is advocating “unlimited” immigration. Besides, we have that now. When people talk about “comprehensive immigration reform” they’re talking about expanding the number of opportunities for legal immigration.

Did you know that U.S. immigration law limits the number of green cards available to Mexicans to only 5,500 per year? What do you expect the rest of the people who want to come here to do? Wait 150 years for their turn?

This is simple physics. You can’t hold back the tide — even if the U.S. spent billions of dollars that we don’t have to build a Berlin-style wall across the entire Mexican border and had border agents posted every 100 feet armed with machine guns and with shoot-to-kill orders. People would just come in through Canada, or by boat to our east, west or gulf coasts.

Do you want to build another wall on the Canadian border? Are you going to add a couple of thousand ships to our Coast Guard? How much are you willing to spend to keep the scary brown-skinned people out?

What we have to do is make sure that everyone who wants to come to this country goes through a screening process and gets the papers to be here legally. That is the only way we can keep track of them.

And the tidal pressure is only going to get worse. I heard a story on NPR that said that Mexican oil production is declining and could end up close to zero in only a decade. What will happen when most of Mexico’s tax revenue disappears?

The immigrants I know are hard-working and motivated. They create jobs. They increase the consumer base. When they are a drag on the economy it is their illegal status that makes them that way.

Another factual tidbit before I have to go and do my bit to contribute to the economy:

Right now, for every person receiving social security there are less than three people paying into the fund. By the time all the baby boomer have retired, there will be only two people working for every person on social security. Obviously, that’s not sustainable. So we have four options.

1) We can tell everyone born after 1960 that they aren’t going to be able to draw social security — but they’ll still have to pay into the system.

2) We can cut social security benefits below the level people need to live.

3) We can do what Hitler did and make it the patriotic duty of every white American to produce more children for the good of the country. Of course, it will take a few years before we can put them to work.

4) We can bring in more workers from outside the country to start paying social security taxes now. The only problem is that they won’t speak English well and they’ll have dark skin.

Of course, we could do what the Republicans do — pretend that the Supply Side Fairy will sprinkle magic pixie dust over the entire country and make the nasty rules of economics go away.

NO HE DOESN’T:

http://www.nysun.com/national/mccain-skips-a-key-vote-on-immigration/65205/

In November of last year, MCCAIN was no where to be seen when a vote was held for the debate of the Dream Act, an act that would grant undocumented students, who grew up in the US, a pathway to legalization. When it comes to an action needed, McCain disappear. McCain is all talk.

Yes, McCain’s comments were “poorly worded.” Everyone knows that only white people and heterosexuals are “God’s children.” The rest are only God’s stepchildren, which don’t count.

Hmmm. Why do I have a hunch that if “God’s children” were used in reference to the issue of – well, letme just throw one out here – ABORTION, that radical lefties such as yourselves would be shouting “Keep your Divine-a off my vagina!”

But inserting religion into the immigration debate is perfectly hunky-dory.

McCain, Clinton and Obama aren’t running for Pastor-in-Chief – they’re running for President o the United Staes. They have a flock to look after – the American people. It is not their calling to look after the people of Mexico, Guatemala, Canada, India, China, Somalia, or anyplace else, whether those people are living in America or their home countries. Anything they do should be measured by whether or not it’s in the best interests of their flock. Mass immigration and open borders is not. Let the president of Mexico look after his own people.

The Pittsburgh Penguins’ hockey announcer, the great Mike Lange, has a call he often uses after an opposing goalie gives up a goal: “He doesn’t know whether to cry or wind his watch.”
For some reason, that phrase comes to mind whenever I watch McSame trip over whatever it was he said last week.

We can bring in more workers from outside the country to start paying social security taxes now. The only problem is that they won’t speak English well and they’ll have dark skin.

And whose to say that, when they get the vote, they’ll want to continue paying for the welfare of a bunch of old, white people who couldn’t even be bothered to have kids? BTW, the worker-to-retiree ratio doesn’t change much even with the mass immigration we have, because even immigrants eventually retire. When you consider that they’re less educated, and the jobs they dopay less, and that they have their own wlefare needs, we actually end up losing.

There is actually a lot of data on this, and your argument never holds up. If the open borders nutsos had actual data don’t you think they’d be using it? The only real data they have is an old, 1997 NSF study showing that immigrants add a paltry $10 billion to the US economy (a tiny sum in a $10 TRILLION economy).

No, “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” means amnesty, pure and simple. Look at last years “comprehensive” bill – it was all about amnesty.

I expect them not to come. NO ONE but a citizen has a right to come here at all.

And your 5,500 number is a joke. Of the 940,000 lgal arrivals last year, 176,000 were from Mexico.

This is simple physics. You can’t hold back the tide

Well thanks for the physics lesson, Steve-o. Much appreciated. The scientific method says that one negative experiment can disprove an entire theory. Therefore I give you Operation Wetback – the Eisenhower Administration program that deported (with very little effort) over 130,000 illegals and caused over 1 million to leave on their own. It CAN work, and if it CAN’T work then what does that say about any other government program? It’s funny how liberals seem to believe that the government is universally competent at anything they want it to do, and then suddenly not competent at all when its a program they oppose.

Competent one day, incompetent the next, competent the day after that, then not, then…

“…I expect them not to come. NO ONE but a citizen has a right to come here at all….”

The last words of Sitting Bull.

Get used to shooting Mexicans or Annexing the country eh. We are king of the Hill but a few well placed earthquakes,droughts and epidemics could change the whole immigration picture. No reason to think things will ever…change.

It has more to do with efficiency than competence. A government that cannot remove racial prejudice is not considered incompetent but it’s mission may be unrealistic.

You may call it amnesty but others call it dealing with reality in realistic terms.

Doctor Biobrain

What you have listed is why the Republicans will soon be irrelevant to politics and the U.S. will be a one party state. A county only needs one big spending, big government party. McCain thinks that the Repubicans can continue on as the party of big spending country club members. He is too stupid to realize that there is not amount of pandering that will ever get Hispanics to vote for Repulbicans.

If the Republicans are going to have a 25% approval rating, at least they could have cut a few programs and ended a few mandate.

Meanwhile, Obama has called out Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh — by name — for their anti-immigrant rhetoric, pointing out, correctly, that it bears some of the blame for the increase in anti-Hispanic hate crimes. It was Thursday — according to the HuffPo — and got lost in the other news, but it shows his courage yet again.

Prup, @20.

But he used a big word — xenophobia — and it hurt Limbaugh’s brain…

Unpleasant as it is to listen to, I hope McCain is persuaded by the Republican party to keep parroting their hatred of the “dirty Messicans”.

With the demographic growth of Hispanic Americans in Texas, the GOP’ll turn our state blue for us in just a few years.

Melior,

The demograhic trends in the U.S. are going to make the Republicans irrelevant nationally before it happens in Texas. The question is what will the U.S. be like as a one party state where the normal policy of the government will be to tax the rich and give the funds to minorities?

Melior,

Dumb liberals can’t figure out that white working class Americans don’t support Obama because he wants open borders. Open border lead illegals to drive down wages for all hourly, working class folks. Instead, liberals cry out that working class people are ignorant, racists. Actually, they have a much better understanding of supply and demand than the elitist latte loving crowd.

Actually, they have a much better understanding of supply and demand than the elitist latte loving crowd.

No, they both pretty much understand supply and demand. It’s that the latte-loving crowd wants cheaper help (and thinks these jobs are beneath whites), while the working class sees it harming them – via wages, but also in their own neighborhoods and schools, as well. Working class Americans see all these illegal immigrant children in their kids’ schools and understand that they’re making it harder for their own children to learn anything.

The last words of Sitting Bull.

Well Sitting bull learned a thing or two about why not having control of your borders can be a very bad thing, didn’t he?

Are you suggesting we repeat his mistake?

This immigrant wave, contrary to much allegation, is not “inevitable.” It is highly evitable, in fact.

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