Ross Douthat of the New York Times offers "The War Over California" (douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/the-war-over-california). He gets the first sentence right and then goes sharply downhill, offering a false choice between conservative parsimony and liberal free-spending. He doesn't mention the key role that massive/illegal immigration has played in California's problems and how support for that has come from both the left and the right. He links to no less than seven articles discussing this issue, only two of which briefly mention illegal aliens.

To the establishment, it's almost like the issue and all of its ramifications doesn't exist. The billions that California spends, the power it gives to the free-spending far-left, the power it gives to the Mexican government inside the U.S., the massive corruption: all of that is something they don't want to discuss.

Notably, he links to two conservative pieces from William Voegeli ("The Big-Spending, High-Taxing, Lousy-Services Paradigm", city-journal.org/2009/19_4_california.html and "Failed State", claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1650/article_detail.asp). Only the last briefly mentions immigration in a reference to Proposition 187. And, of course, Glenn Reynolds links to Douthat's piece approvingly (pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/90475).

Clearly, establishment hacks like Douthat have no interest in discussing immigration's role in the U.S.'s problems. They aren't being intellectually honest; they're living in (or just retailing) a fantasy world.

Why take the advice of someone who isn't honest?