O’Sullivan on McCain: “No problema”

John O’Sullivan is the former editor of National Review who in the early 1990s made that magazine a vehicle for immigration restrictionism, and specifically (and unprecedentedly) for the cultural and national argument against open immigration. After O’Sullivan was dismissed as editor by William Buckley in 1997, and Peter Brimelow, a major force in NR’s move to the cultural right, was removed as a senior editor, O’Sullivan in his subsequent writings never seemed to revisit the immigration issue again, except perhaps for an occasional passing mention. Had he been scared off the issue by losing his job? Or had he changed his mind and ceased caring about it? Or had he never really cared about it? Was it something that he just happened to be “into” at the time, perhaps under the influence of his friend and fellow Brit Peter Brimelow?

Whatever the answer to that question, O’Sullivan has now made clear his indifference to the immigration problem. Writing at the Corner today, he says that when he came home from the theater last night,

I found that the South Carolina primary has no fears for me. Sure, McCain won and is probably on the way to the nomination. Probably, not certainly, but it’s hard to see who is going to take it away from him among the current contenders.

The most aggressive and convicted advocate of open borders in the Republican party, the man who sought to push the most radical immigration bill in American history through the Senate last spring without a debate, the man who (according to former Sen. Rick Santorum) repeatedly called his Senate colleagues “xenophobes” for not supporting that bill, is, O’Sullivan believes, on his way to the GOP nomination, and this, O’Sullivan complacently assures us, has “no fears” for him.

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Tim W. writes:

O’Sullivan seems more sensible on immigration in this article. His attitude towards McCain seems baffling given his writings here:

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 20, 2008 07:24 PM | Send