First of all, there will always be those who express such ideas. If there were no paleocons, there would still be David Duke or Jared Taylor to point to as a justification for inaction. If that scares ordinary people off, it's certainly unfortunate, but one expects writers and ideologists to have more mettle than that. If they felt strongly enough about immigration reform, they would push for it. Indeed, decreasing immigration levels and imposing greater control could be seen as a step to reducing bigotry by reducing immigration to manageable levels if Frum and his peers wanted less immigration. They don't, and it has nothing to do with paleos.
Secondly, it's contradictory to argue that these paleocons have no following or hope of success and then blame such obscure ideologues for the failure to change policy. If they are as insignificant as Frum claims -- and they are -- how can they be blamed for the refusal of others to take action on the issue? When most Americans and most American politicians have never heard of Fleming or Francis, where's the logic in making them responsible for policy.
Third, there's a thin line between what is acceptable and what isn't. National Review itself has had problems on this score, both in earlier articles on civil rights, desegregation and apartheid and in recent articles on Arabs and Europeans. And NR writers like Steve Sailer and John Derbyshire come close to the paleocons attacked by Frum in their racial ideas. Frum can certainly condemn the paleos when they deserve it, but it's not true that his own peers avoid similar reproaches.
I don't have any use for Fleming or Rockwell. I think Francis was and Gottfried is worth reading, though I disagree with much of what they say. What I object to is the odious Frum's attempt to use the current war to promote his own agenda. His self-serving and hypocritical denial of the long silence of his own group on immigration issues is dishonest and particularly worthy of condemnation.
I wonder, though, who defines what constitutes "racialist rhetoric," and who has made the political/moral climate such that certain issues are "as welcome as [skunks] at a picnic?"
It seems to me that these calls to "purge" paleoconservatives just do the work of the liberals for them. The "anti-paleos" (dare I call them "neocons?") seem to take the validity of liberal definitions of "racialism" for granted, or at least they're too fearful to challenge those liberal definitions head-on. I sense liberal influence; they slipped behind conservative lines and told the neos and paleos, "Lets you and him fight!"