Georges, vous avez perdu vos partisans

How many times over the last five years have supporters of President Bush, pressed by their fellow conservatives about some doubtful (from a conservative point of view) thing Bush had done, loyally declaimed, “I give him the benefit of the doubt.” The thought was that the president—as the president, as a Republican, and as a nominal conservative—was entitled to a presumption on the part of conservatives that he was both truthful and on their side. In a welcome sign that his past supporters are no longer willing to give him that presumption, Richard Lowry, without the slightest gesture of deference or respect, baldly states his disbelief in the sincerity of Bush’s recent remarks that he intends to stop illegal immigration:

As far as I’m concerned Bush should be taken with a big grain of salt today, given that his intention clearly is to seem just tough enough on the border to make conservatives swallow a guest worker program and some sort of amnesty. Here is the quote of the day from a Republican close to the White House from the new Time magazine (“comprehensive” is a euphemism for a guest worker program and probably some form of amnesty): “Bush decided to give these guys their rhetorical pound of flesh. In return, he wants a comprehensive bill, which is what he has always wanted. He’s just going to lead with a lot of noise about border security.”

The openly expressed incredulity of an establishment conservative toward Bush’s patently unbelievable statements represents progress. It at least shows that the conservative movement is not 100 percent dead. However, let us not forget that the depth of Lowry’s own commitment on this issue is hardly beyond question. His advent as editor of NR in 1997 coincided with the total disappearance of the immigration issue from the pages of that magazine, only re-appearing in a very tentative manner after 9/11—and only involving the politically safe, no-brainer subject of illegal immigration, never legal immigration.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 28, 2005 07:56 PM | Send