September 5, 2010
BREWER QUIETLY FESSES UP.... Just to put a coda on one of the week's more peculiar stories, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) conceded she was wrong about immigrants committing beheadings -- but she waited until late Friday afternoon on a holiday weekend to fess up.
If you're just joining us, the odd, far-right governor recently insisted that anti-immigrant legislation in Arizona is necessary, in part because of widespread violence. More specifically, Brewer alleged that immigrants entering the U.S. illegally are responsible for "beheadings" in the Arizona desert, a claim that the governor appears to have just made up out of whole cloth.
State Attorney General Terry Goddard (D), during a debate this week, urged Brewer to admit she was wrong, explaining that the governor wasn't doing Arizona any favors by lying about crimes that didn't occur. Brewer refused. After the event, reporters pressed the governor on the point, prompting her to run away.
Late on Friday, Brewer chatted with the AP.
"That was an error, if I said that," the Republican told The Associated Press on Friday. "I misspoke, but you know, let me be clear, I am concerned about the border region because it continues to be reported in Mexico that there's a lot of violence going on and we don't want that going into Arizona."
First, "if I said that"? She said that.
Second, trying to connect crime to immigration problems is still a losing proposition.
And third, note that Brewer waited until late on a Friday -- on Labor Day weekend -- to acknowledge the fact that she made up a bogus claim that made her state look bad.
I don't imagine Arizona voters have heard the last of this.
—Steve Benen 8:00 AM
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"Error"? "Misspoke"? Why use big words, when the little ones-LIE!-are so succinct.
Remember the one from the Good Old Days of Nixon? "That statement is no longer operable. . ."
Posted by: DAY on September 5, 2010 at 8:40 AM | PERMALINK
There is nothing in this world
Nothing you can name
That is anything like a cringing
Excuse' ridden bully
Who is hiding in the lame
Posted by: FRP on September 5, 2010 at 8:41 AM | PERMALINK
Wow
Cheese it DAY
The new inoperative operative is ...
Taaa Daaaa
Wardrobe malfunction
Try to stay with the hip new world
Please
It is so much more shiny than the old world's laboured reasoning .
That gave us
"I am not a crook"
Shiney = Good
I give you this for that .
Posted by: FRP on September 5, 2010 at 8:48 AM | PERMALINK
It won't matter to the 'base'. Nothing matters to the base except electing more lunatics to the crazy-caucus.
America is having a psychotic episode before our very eyes. It required twelve years in Germany, and obscene, unfathomable violence, before it ended. Although the echos continue to be with us.
The question now is: Who will save us from ourselves?
Posted by: rrk1 on September 5, 2010 at 8:51 AM | PERMALINK
I am hoping that a deus ex machina , likely garbed in the attention span of the beck .
Who or what can overtake the bumbling projection aimed at nowhere . The Eisenhower age is the frilly clothing on the reactionary pre Magna Carta brilliance , 1066 anyone ? Like many a movement that has its rise based in an alienation to changing demographics and assumed loss of prestige , the very hollow tone of the feeble drum will not strengthen due to logic or reason . The notorious ability to conflate puffy the marshmallow thing into Satan should tire out the facility of conflation for those disturbed self mutilating sods our and their much maligned constitution seeks to protect .
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Emma Lazarus, 1883
Sigh
Posted by: FRP on September 5, 2010 at 9:12 AM | PERMALINK
Setting a new precendence in political debates, stumble, bumble, and fall, certainly worthy of a McCain endorsement. What are the voters in Arizona thinking?
Posted by: Ted76 on September 5, 2010 at 9:38 AM | PERMALINK
“if I said that” is actually MORE bizarre than both her original statement about “beheadings” and her apparent dimensional shift during the debate.
Posted by: Joe Friday on September 5, 2010 at 10:33 AM | PERMALINK
If I were Goddard, I wouldn't let her get away with the stealth Friday admission. I'de come out next week with a couple of hard hitting ads along the lines of Steve's critique just so voters don't forget the damage done by that statement.
Posted by: bdop4 on September 5, 2010 at 10:36 AM | PERMALINK
Next we will learn the lie about the number of "illegal aliens" in Arizona... If there are, were, really 480,000 of " them" that means that, given 6 million Arizonans 1/3 of whom are Hispanic, one of every four Hispanics are "illegal aliens."
This means that whole swaths of Hispanic neighborhoods are totally 100% illegal, a totally illogical conclusion.
Meanwhile,
boycott the Wall Street Journal.
Posted by: KurtRex1453 on September 5, 2010 at 12:26 PM | PERMALINK
KurtRex1453 12:26 PM "boyott the Sall Street Journal" also boycott The NY Post, and Faux Noos.
Posted by: Ted76 on September 5, 2010 at 5:33 PM | PERMALINK