Mickey Kaus asks

You also have to wonder: If even John McCain’s lifelong (and only temporarily suspended) campaign for legalization doesn’t get him much support among Hispanics–who currently seem to prefer Obama 2-to-1–will Republicans in general finally give up on the cynical Rovian dream of using immigration liberalization to win over that growing ethnic group?

And  McCain isn’t even trying to hide his immigration enthusiasm. Robert Stacy McCain points to a Human Events interview in which John McCain says:

Q: You were in the forefront of the comprehensive immigration package that died in the Senate in ‘06. Now you are saying ‘border security’ first…
A: That’s the reality. The reason it was rejected by the Senate was we didn’t give the American people the confidence that the borders would be secure. But, in all candor, you need to have a path to citizenship [for those] who come here illegally. And you need a temporary worker program.
Q: So will you send the Senate a “border security only” package?
A: I’m still open to a comprehensive package. But I understand we have to sit down on this. We must secure the borders, we have to have a temporary worker program, we must round up and deport 2 million people who are here illegally and have committed crimes. But people who have gotten here illegally, obeyed the laws, learned English, lived here all their lives and have lived decent lives — they have to go through the naturalization process. They are God’s children.

[HUMAN EVENTS EXCLUSIVE: McCain Promises No Compromise on Supreme Court, Will Visit ANWR, by John Gizzi 10/17/2008]

(Emphasis added by The Other McCain.) Whenever I  hear that illegals are “God’s children,” (perfectly true) I think of a story about Ulster’s Ian Paisley, a Calvinist who represented the Protestant side in Northern Ireland. I first heard this story heard from John Derbyshire, in 2001. Asked by British Prime Minister James Callaghan “Are we not all the children of God?” Paisley replied  “No, Sir. We are the children of wrath.”

You’d think McCain, of all people, would know that. What this means theologically isn’t important here–it’s from Ephesians 2:3 and is a popular text with Calvinists like Paisley–in international politics means something very  simple: there are two kinds of “children of God”–our “children of God” and their “children of God.” And the President ot the United States is supposed to know which is which.

So Colin Powell, pampered protégé of a series of naïve Republican administrations from Reagan to the Bushes, has at the first opportunity abandoned his patrons and endorsed a fellow (more or less) black:

Powell move a bitter blow to McCain By Kevin Connolly BBC News, Washington Sunday, 19 October 2008

Adding injury to insult, he pretended to be doing so because

America needs the generational change which Mr Obama is in a position to offer

while at the time offering an Establishmentarian sneer at Sarah Palin, who is of Obama’s generation and whose provincial background is in fact similar to Powell’s.

Powell, of course, according to a Wikipedia entry (very likely to be revised given that entity’s censorship habits), miraculously survived a very negative evaluation as a Brigadier General in the mid 1980s given by his extremely courageous commanding general

In the early 1980s, Powell served at Fort Carson, Colorado. It was there that he had a major clash with General John W. Hudachek, his commander. Hudachek said in an efficiency evaluation that Powell was a poor leader who should not be promoted. Powell’s rising military career was unhindered by Hudachek’s evaluation report

That would have finished the career of any white professional soldier, but instead Powell went straight to Washington to be “senior military assistant” to Caspar Weinberger, the Secretary of Defense. No doubt he suited the color scheme in the Secretary’s office.

Powell’s true measure appeared in the buildup to the Iraq invasion - which he supported in public, while allowing his media friends know he had doubts. Predictable in a courtier, perhaps, but given the amount of blood and treasure involved, despicable in a man – and impossible in a statesman.

That racial solidarity should prove dominant at the first opportunity, of course, will be absolutely no surprise to any ethnic group around the world – except WASPs. Similar behavior was seen amongst Hispanic “Republicans” earlier in the primary season: ethnic solidarity ruled.

Some in the VDARE.com coalition welcome the prospect of an Obama Presidency, anticipating that the abrasive ethnic favoritism inevitable in such an Administration will finally enlighten the traditional American people. This will make things awkward for what appears to be currently the dominant intellectual force in the current GOP leadership. The Democrats, by so openly appealing to ethnocentrism, could well be unleashing forces lethal to themselves.

A cheerful thought. Good riddance, Colin Powell.

The New York Times runs an article that provides a human interest illustration for my June “Diversity Recession” thesis:

The Reckoning
Building Flawed American Dreams
By DAVID STREITFELD and GRETCHEN MORGENSON

SAN ANTONIO — A grandson of Mexican immigrants and a former mayor of this town, Henry G. Cisneros has spent years trying to make the dream of homeownership come true for low-income families.

As the Clinton administration’s top housing official in the mid-1990s, Mr. Cisneros loosened mortgage restrictions so first-time buyers could qualify for loans they could never get before.

Then, capitalizing on a housing expansion he helped unleash, he joined the boards of a major builder, KB Home, and the largest mortgage lender in the nation, Countrywide Financial — two companies that rode the housing boom, drawing criticism along the way for abusive business practices.

(more…)