It's a nine point argument, so Read The Whole Thing, but here's a point which is important.
If you worry about amnesty, as I do and I assume NR does, it seems not even a close question whether no bill is better than Isakson. As Mark Krikorian notes, Isakson's plan would legitimize amnesty, undermine enforcement, and create pressure for a future fudging of the benchmarks to allow an amnesty whether or not border protections, etc., work. A legislative impasse would be far preferable.**.
The asterisks refer to this footnote:
**— It might not help Republicans duck a divisive immigration debate for the 2008 election or line up Hispanic voters for future races. Those things may matter more to Republicans than to non-Republicans.
This leads to a point Sam Francis made after David Frum came out with an article called GOP, You Are Warned in National Review.
The article warned that failure to deal with immigration could severely damage the GOP. Which is very true, but not that important.
Sam wrote an article called Immigration Policy Bad For America!–Not Just GOP.
That's the point Lowry and National Review seem to be missing—immigration isn't just about Republicans, it's about the continued survival of the United States of America.
