Steyn: The Benghazi Lie

This is a must read column from Mark Steyn for National Review:

Shortly before last November’s election I took part in a Fox News documentary on Benghazi, whose other participants included the former governor of New Hampshire John Sununu. Making chit-chat while the camera crew were setting up, Governor Sununu said to me that in his view Benghazi mattered because it was “a question of character.” That’s correct. On a question of foreign policy or counterterrorism strategy, men of good faith can make the wrong decisions. But a failure of character corrodes the integrity of the state.

That’s why career diplomat Gregory Hicks’s testimony was so damning — not so much for the new facts as for what those facts revealed about the leaders of this republic. In this space in January, I noted that Hillary Clinton had denied ever seeing Ambassador Stevens’s warnings about deteriorating security in Libya on the grounds that “1.43 million cables come to my office” — and she can’t be expected to see all of them, or any. Once Ambassador Stevens was in his flag-draped coffin listening to her eulogy for him at Andrews Air Force Base, he was her bestest friend in the world — it was all “Chris this” and “Chris that,” as if they’d known each other since third grade. But up till that point he was just one of 1.43 million close personal friends of Hillary trying in vain to get her ear.

Now we know that at 8 p.m. Eastern time on the last night of Stevens’s life, his deputy in Libya spoke to Secretary Clinton and informed her of the attack in Benghazi and the fact that the ambassador was now missing. An hour later, Gregory Hicks received a call from the then–Libyan prime minister, Abdurrahim el-Keib, informing him that Stevens was dead. Hicks immediately called Washington. It was 9 p.m. Eastern time, or 3 a.m. in Libya. Remember the Clinton presidential team’s most famous campaign ad? About how Hillary would be ready to take that 3 a.m. call? Four years later, the phone rings, and Secretary Clinton’s not there. She doesn’t call Hicks back that evening. Or the following day.

Read the entire column here.

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Immigration Reform Must Mean Immigration Security

By Joe Gruters

The Boston bombings have shown again the critical security issues involved with our immigration policy, and the importance of knowing who is visiting our country and where they are.

This means starting with secure borders and enacting e-verify, and the fact is that our borders are not secure right now. People illegally cross back and forth by the millions. That is a blatant security problem that also is creating enormous financial burdens on Americans and visitors who are here legally, abiding by American laws and paying into the system.

It is both dangerous and it is unfair.

So we have great respect for Sen. Marco Rubio and what he is trying to accomplish with immigration reform. It clearly needs reforming. And he should get tremendous kudos for taking on such a politically dicey issue — one that is dividing his own party. He is showing leadership from the front, unlike the current White House occupant.

However, having said that, the bill remains flawed. Despite Sen. Rubio’s defenses of the triggers, when boiled down it appears to be amnesty-first. The most realistic future based on the duplicity of the last time we went through immigration “reform” in the 1980s is that Democrats will find a way to avoid the border security.

Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, writes that the bill calls for “an enforcement plan on paper and a commission to be named later.” A giant loophole.

“Under the bill, no additional enforcement has to take place before undocumented immigrants get legalized. The secretary of the Department of Homeland Security merely has to come up with a strategy for enforcement and notify Congress that it has commenced. It doesn’t matter if it is a good, bad, or indifferent plan, so long as it is a plan. Then, an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants get legal status.”

Now that legal status is not citizenship. And according to the bill right now, such citizenship would still require going through hoops. It’s not the blanket from the 1980s. But unfortunately, it does not take a prophet to predict how the Democrats will act. Sequestration has proven they are more interesting in winning than governing in the best interests of the American people.

Once the people here illegally are made to be here legally with the wave of a pen, Democrats will immediately begin to push to make them citizens. The Gang of Eight proposal is only legislation. It can be changed, modified or overturned.

So Democrats will pull at emotions to argue that we’ve got to allow these legal residents to have all the benefits available if they are paying into the system. And then they will argue that this country was built on a revolt against taxation without representation and that this will leave the people here legally in the position of paying taxes but not being able to vote — which will resonate with a lot of people. Therefore they must become citizens.

And we still won’t have border security.

Again.

There is only one chance with leverage on Democrats primarily seeking millions more Democrat voters. Any immigration reform must be based in factual reality, not the pieties of political correctness, and not in crass future political gains regardless of the consequences to the nation.

If it cannot be done with the security of the American people in mind first — and that means fully guarded borders — then it should not be done at all. As bad as the current situation is, it is better than any solution that involves giving legal status to the current crop of people here illegally before the borders are actually, physically secured.

Thanks for being informed and engaged.