I once told Brian when we were reunited as roommates a few years after high school that a moment comes in Richard Strauss’s Till Eilenspiegel when the character is killed and now in his heaven. Brian later castigated me for speaking so definitively in what was merely my fanciful interpretation of music. But it should be clear to what extent things are knowable in the various realms.

A few months back in the Parries known as “Spooked, They’ll Anoint Rudy,” I was quite wrong; Giuliani is long out the presidential race and in retrospect that was perhaps somehow obvious. My argument then was about national security—I thought it outrageous that the authors of the National Intelligence Report executive summary try to shape the political debate by concluding Iran is not a clear and present danger; this report surely signaled to the electorate that the nation’s fibre is under attack even from within and a president strong on national security is still required. As a relatively superficial follower of events however I saw no prominent national security candidate beyond Giuliani. There was of course one, who’d been out on a limb advocating a retooling for victory in Iraq for months if not years before the Surge was finally enacted, and there could have been no stronger national security credential than this.

John McCain seems an American president I’d love even more than the great liberator George W. Bush (most of you just left, I know). Beyond steadfastness and vigor in the prosecution of Islamofascism, he holds a more American position than his party on immigration. As the party of freedom and commerce, Republicans should want to admit anyone wishing to work and become American. If the North American continent is its magnificent body, the Constitution its inspired brain, then immigration is America’s blood. It’s an outrage that immigration’s been halted, that Ellis Island is a museum. America is mostly empty. The United States could double in population—indeed, to compete against India and China, it probably should—and wouldn’t it be good if that population increase was conscious and managed, and thereby diverse, rather than almost completely Hispanic?

Most Republicans don’t seem to want massive and diverse immigration. I accuse them of being country-club Americans, of being fearful protectionists, of hiding behind national security and the building of the border fence with Mexico their desire to keep out the riff-raff and protect their piece of the apple pie. Nonetheless, a few years into a McCain presidency I feel somewhat confident that I’d be able to emigrate to the US.

Contrast that with an Obama presidency, in hock both ideologically and politically to unions, whose basic interest is to protect the privileges of their current members. Generally this leads to wanting to limit the labor supply, and one obvious way to do so is keeping a lid on immigration. Plus, I might wait on the move anyway as I’m not sure if I’d want to move to a country that could be in the grip of the deepest depression since the 1930s and rudderless and helpless in face of an onslaught of intimidation from the Islamofascists.

Just thought I’d lay my cards out here.