Opinion: Arizona’s Gov. Jan Brewer fires back at Obama’s Napolitano and Mexico’s Calderon
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Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer launched a double-barrage back Thursday at President Obama’s Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who took the occasion of his state visit to Washington to twice criticize the law of an American state.
“I think that’s really unfortunate,’ Brewer told Greta Van Susteren on the Fox News Channel. ‘I don’t believe he understands what the law actually says and I don’t mean that derogatory. The fact of the matter is that it prohibits racial profiling; its illegal in the state of Arizona. And racial profiling is illegal in the United States.” Brewer added: “I’ve also heard (Calderon) say he wants a safer border. And I don’t know what the code word is in there, but for me it seems that he wants something maybe that we in America might not want.”
Brewer also addressed the admission by her gubernatorial predecessor, Napolitano, that the cabinet secretary, like Obama Atty. Gen. Eric Holder, has not actually read the....
...state legislation they have been so heartily deriding. (See Related Items below for numerous links on this topic.)
“For her to say she hadn’t even read the bill that I signed,’ Brewer said, ‘is just unconscionable.”
Polls have shown broad support for Arizona’s legislative frustration over federal inaction in securing the border with Mexico. Now comes a new Arizona poll showing how badly the controversy has hurt Brewer’s standing among Arizonans:
Not!
In the last month of sustained Democratic criticism from outside the state, the Republican governor’s approval inside her state has jumped 19 points to 45%, far ahead of her Aug. 24 primary competitors with the closest now at 18%, according to Rasmussen Reports
A week after signing the legislation, Brewer lead her most likely Democratic opponent 48-40. New November match-up numbers are due out Friday from Rasmussen.
Brewer said: “I keep questioning the fact of this continuation of misleading, I believe, the American public on the facts.”
The governor claimed she has written Obama administration officials frequently seeking help securing the border with Mexico. She called it ‘really frustrating’ that there has been ‘absolutely no response.’
“They stepped up,’ she noted, ‘They helped Texas. They helped California. And here we sit, the drug corner of the world. They need to step up and secure our borders.”
About the announced boycott of Arizona by the Los Angeles City Council and the responding threat of one Arizona power regulator to sever the large volume of electrical power sent there, as The Ticket described right here, Brewer said:
We do have a contract with Los Angeles and they could void that I suppose, or if they didn’t pay the electric bill maybe we could turn the lights off, but we’re not gonna just flip the switch.
Brewer added: ‘We have the right in Arizona, as does everyone else in the country, to feel safe.” Related items:
Joe Biden update: Mexican Pres. Calderon’s speech prompts deep thoughtzzz
Obama folks having real t-r-o-u-b-l-e reading Arizona’s new i-l-l-e-g-a-l immigrant l-a-w
Los presidentes Calderon y Obama talk about the sensitive border issue
A California mayor wants to hang out the illegal immigrants Unwelcome sign
Support broadens among Americans for Arizona’s illegal immigrant law
See for yourself: Complete text of the Arizona law and Executive Order
Arizona Gov. Brewer explains signing nation’s toughest immigration bill
So what does the new Arizona law actually do?
-- Andrew Malcolm
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