Self-styled “truth teller” Jan Brewer is taking a beating in the media for her lie

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Self-styled "truth teller" Jan Brewer is taking a beating in the media for being the queen of making up shit. The media just now noticed this? As I have said before, go back and review Jan Brewer's public statements when she was serving in the legislature and even as Secretary of State. She was always good for a "crazy quote" in the newspapers. Do newspapers not have an archives/research staff any longer?

On Tuesday, the Arizona Republic editorialized that Gov. Jan Brewer needs to get her facts straight:

To avoid making the state look foolish, Brewer needs to educate herself and stop making statements that are incorrect and potentially damaging.

Her most recent mistake – saying that most people coming across the southern border illegally are involved in drug smuggling – contains no more than a kernel of truth.

Here's the kernel: Border-security measures did not stop illegal immigration, but they did force migrant laborers to hire criminal smugglers to get them across the desert. Drug cartels began to get involved when smuggling people became lucrative. Criminal smugglers turned humans into valuable cargo and turned Phoenix into a national distribution hub for illegal workers. Smugglers set up drophouses where migrants are held for ransom, sending Valley kidnapping rates soaring.

This is an instructive example of the failure of the border-enforcement-only approach, which has been the federal government's default setting since comprehensive reform stalled.

It is not evidence that a guy who pays a smuggler for passage to a job washing dishes is a big, scary drug runner.

"The vast majority of those whom we arrest are not smuggling drugs," Brandon Judd, president of the union of Border Patrol agents in the Tucson Sector, told the Associated Press.

It is irresponsible and reckless for Brewer to suggest that migrants who come here to work are routinely smuggling drugs. It plays into the systematic vilification of illegal immigrants that extreme anti-immigrant groups use to poison and polarize talks about immigration reform.

Sen. John McCain, who traded his former leadership on the immigration issue for a bizarre election-year call to "complete the danged fence," stuck his neck out far enough this weekend to disagree with Brewer on the migrants-as-drug-mules statement. We need more straight talk from both McCain and Sen. Jon Kyl.

Oh please. This is where the "I heart McCain" editors of the Arizona Republic run off the rails. Spare me the "straight talk" express campaign slogan. As Think Progress noted McCain Disagrees With Gov. Jan Brewer: Most Undocumented Immigrants Are Not ‘Drug Mules’:

Perhaps the reason McCain refused to say whether Brewer’s inaccurate generalizations contribute to a toxic environment of misinformation is because he too has been misleading the public with his fear-mongering. McCain once described undocumented immigrants as “God’s children” and reminded people that “the overwhelming majority of people who come to this country are honest, god-fearing, hard-working people.” Now, when discussing immigration, McCain prefers to bring up the “murderous, barbaric behavior” of drug cartels and the appalling death toll in Mexico. However, what he and his colleagues don’t tell voters is that, despite violence in Mexico, the U.S. side of the border is safer than it’s been in years.

Recently released FBI crime statistics show that, despite an increase in illegal immigration, crime has been dropping in Arizona for years. Not only is violent crime declining in Arizona, immigrants themselves are actually less likely to commit crimes and more likely to contribute to the safety of communities they live in. A study of more than 50,000 U.S. cities revealed that “the cities that experience the greatest growth in immigration were the same one that were experiencing the greatest declines in violent crime.”

During his interview with Gregory, McCain also insisted that Congress can not pass immigration reform until the border is secure. Just a few years ago, McCain called an “enforcement-first” strategy an “ineffective and ill-advised approach” and insisted that “the only way to truly secure our border and protect our Nation is through the enactment of comprehensive immigration reform.”

As the Republic editorial concluded:

These are facts.

The governor needs to learn them or risk looking increasingly silly on the national stage.

And so do the editors of the Arizona Republic and their heart-throb John McCain.

Today, the Arizona Daily Star editorialized Hyperbole deters genuine debate on border reform:

We have to get past the "just say no" delusion and be willing to at least talk about ways to take the incentive out of the game for drug smugglers. A necessary first step is to move away from hyperbole. We must call people out when they perpetuate falsehoods – like Brewer repeatedly stating, as if it were fact, that most illegal immigrants bring drugs into Arizona.

The Star's Tim Steller debunked Brewer's assertion through factual reporting. For instance, he asked Brandon Judd, the president of the Tucson Sector group of the Border Patrol agents' union about it. Cartels are involved in smuggling people, but, Judd said, "The vast majority of those whom we arrest are not smuggling drugs."

If Arizonans, and the rest of the country, can't trust what Brewer – the Arizona governor – is saying about the situation along the border, there is no way to tackle the problems that do exist.

A press release from the Arizona Democratic Party adds:

A roundtable of Arizona journalists on KAET’s “Horizon” dismantled Gov. Brewer’s claim that she is a“truth-teller.” Here are some excerpts from the Friday broadcast:

n  “This governor has a tendency to make misstatements.”

n  “Where did the governor get her information from? Well, we don’t know, because they can’t provide us that information.”

n   “If she continues to put out information that either can’t be backed up by data or is contradicted by the facts, it’s going to call some of that credibility into question.”

n  “It just adds to the whole confusion when we’re trying to talk about real solutions to the border problem.”

Watch the whole discussion for yourself: