McCain Supports Amnesty

Filed under: 2008 elections, Immigration, John McCain, United States — Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief on January 6, 2008 @ 9:04 pm CET

Although Senator John McCain blasts Mitt Romney - and everybody else - when he says that McCain supported amnesty for illegal aliens (at one time or another), and is quite self-righteous about it at that, it has to be said that the only one lying about this issue is the Senator from Arizona himself. Via the Corner:

There are jobs that American workers simply won’t do,’ McCain said. ‘As long as there’s a demand for workers, workers are going to come across.’ An amnesty program is vital to any immigration legislation that includes a guest-worker program, he said. ‘Amnesty has to be an important part because there are people who have lived in this country for 20, 30 or 40 years, who have raised children here and pay taxes here and are not citizens. That has to be a component of it,’ he said. ‘How can we have a temporary worker program if we’re not allowing people who have been here for 30 years to hold jobs here?’” (C. T. Revere, “McCain Pushes Amnesty, Guest-Worker Program,” Tucson Citizen, 5/29/03)

As Ramesh Ponnuru points out, McCain repeats - everywhere he goes - that he never supported amnesty, but that’s a lie, and quite a big one at that. Sadly, however, “it won’t help Romney, if McCain’s friends in the press just ignore it.”

And they’ll do their very best to do just that, I am sure.

The bad news for McCain is, however, that conservatives do know about it and read about it. This is why it’ll be difficult for him to get them to support him. If he becomes the nominee it will be despite the preferences of the conservative base, not because of it.

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1 Bill W

January 7, 2008 @ 2:11 am CET

I don’t know, Michael -seems like you are picking at nits because of some dislike for him. I don’t like how he was positioned on immigration even earlier this year, but he has said he has seen the light - enforcement of the border first.

I don’t agree with any of the candidates 100% on anything. I can take his position on immigration, and I could support him for president - as I could Guliani or Romney. Jury is still out on Huckabee and Obama; Hillary & Edwards - a big no.

2 supernovia

January 7, 2008 @ 7:37 am CET

Well, I couldn’t support McCain now. I am completely disgusted. Not only did he and Huckabee behave like playground bullies the other night, but he is lying. Lying. Mitt said McCain supported amnesty. McCain said it himself! Yet he says now he never supported amnesty, and calls Romney a liar. No matter how a person feels about amnesty (whether paying a fine makes it amnesty or not) he himself called it amnesty, and now he says it isn’t and never was. So he lies, and the lies again to say his opponent is a liar.

The world does not need a dishonest, mean-spirited person like McCain leading America.