"Am I Wobbly? Over at The Corner, Ramesh Ponnuru and Rich Lowry attempt to answer the question of whether National Review has gone wobbly on immigration. It's pretty clear the answer is yes. Ponnuru says he's being "consistent" with NR's position when he defends—as the "framework for a compromise"—Sen. Johnny Isakson's plan, which would delay "an amnesty or guest worker program" until border and workplace enforcement measures were shown to be working."[Am I Wobbly?What National Review will do to save McCain. By Mickey Kaus Updated Friday, March 30, 2007, at 8:35 AM ET]
It's pretty obvious that NR has been wobbly for some time, since, for example, Peter Brimelow was purged for lack of wobbliness. Ramesh Ponnuru is dealt with here: National Review, April 2, 2001 "Minding the 'Golden Door': Toward a [Wobbly] Restrictionism that can Succeed" with Peter Brimelow's responses and mine. See here and here for Lowry.
Kaus says that
National Review has been one of the voices of sanity in the immigration debate.
which is true only if you compare it to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Senator McCain's press secretary, and adds
If even NR concedes that there's an official amnesty in our near future, the debate hasn't "moved to the right," as Lowry argues. The debate is over.
Well, we're here, and so are a large number of Congressmen, plus 70 percent of actual voters. Maybe it's not the debate that's over—maybe it's National Review.
