Michelle Malkin and Bryan Preston of HotAir.com sat down last week to be interviewed for an hour by editors and reporters from The Washington Times. Excerpts of the interview will appear on Tuesday's Culture, Etc. page, and are now online in three segments (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3).
Enjoy -- and feel free to comment, but please remember: Comments are moderated.
-- David Eldridge, managing editor, WashingtonTimes.com
UPDATE / 9:19 p.m.:
Don Surber of the Charleston (W.Va.) Daily Mail links:
Malkin explains the addiction that keeps her busy in the middle of the night.
That's in reference to the confession in Part I:
I confess -- I am a full blog junkie. ... I'd been a blog reader since after 9/11 -- really, actually, before 9/11, I'd read Mickey Kaus' blog and Instapundit in the early days. ... But after I jumped into it feet first, it's not something you can turn off. You do it in the middle of the night.-- Robert Stacy McCain, assistant national editor, The Washington Times
UPDATE / 9:53 p.m.:
James Joyner takes issue with Mrs. Malkin's remarks about immigration as a national security issue:
The conflation of the illegal immigration and terrorism issues is problematic. ... Certainly, the 9/11 hijackers didn't wade across the Rio Grande and then ride to Logan Airport in the trunk of a car.
Whatever one thinks of fruit pickers and poultry factory workers sending money home to Mexico, they're not a terrorist threat. It's hard to feed yourself, send money to support your family back home, and foment terrorism on $2.50 an hour.
Well, James is an Army veteran, so I'll let him defend himself on that one.
-- RSM
Comments (4)
The idea that immigration and border control are not national security issues is crushingly refuted by today's story about Ft. Dix:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/08/fortdix.plot/index.html
"Six "Islamic radicals" involved in a plot to kill U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix in New Jersey were arrested Monday night, the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey said Tuesday. One of the suspects was born in Jordan, another in Turkey, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. The rest are believed to be Yugoslavian, "either U.S. citizens or living illegally in the United States," the office said in a statement."
Clearly, it is not at all incorrect to conflate immigration and national security, because fruit pickers and factory workers are not the only people who come here illegally.
Malkin is right on the money about immigration. How can we claim to be serious about the war on terror if we don't control our borders and we don't know who is here?
Posted by Dexter Scott | May 8, 2007 10:09 AM
This was an interesting interview that often read like a panel discussion. Too bad the Washington Times doesn't have a video component to their Web site where we could watch the unedited video.
Posted by Scott McCollum | May 8, 2007 1:31 PM
Clearly, it is not at all incorrect to conflate immigration and national security, because fruit pickers and factory workers are not the only people who come here illegally.
Well, sure. Tightening immigration from Muslim countries and monitoring those to whom we've granted visas makes sense. Nobody's arguing otherwise.
But the conversation there was in the context of the Mexican border. I'm pretty sure our would-be Yugoslav terrorists didn't cross the Rio Grande.
We should not use fears of terrorism as an excuse to crack down on Latin American migrant workers. They're simply separate issues.
Posted by James Joyner | May 8, 2007 1:47 PM
But the conversation there was in the context of the Mexican border. I'm pretty sure our would-be Yugoslav terrorists didn't cross the Rio Grande.
So? How they got here is irrelevant - the fact that they got here is what is significant. They obviously could have crossed the Rio (or the Canadian border, or entered in a dozen other ways, since we are wide open). The whole debate about screening lists of passengers flying here from Europe or the Middle East is a total joke. All the bad guys would need to do is fly to Mexico and walk across the border undetected and unscreened.
We should not use fears of terrorism as an excuse to crack down on Latin American migrant workers. They're simply separate issues.
For one thing, we don't need "another excuse" to crack down on Latin American migrant workers. We already have one - migrant workers are here illegally. For another thing, border security is one single issue. You cannot control the borders effectively enough to keep out terrorists, and not automatically also keep out migrant workers. If you want to keep out the terrorists, you have to accept that illegal migrant workers will also be kept out. Not that this should be a problem, since in fact we should keep out both terrorists and illegal immigrants.
The government has a fundamental obligation to control the borders, and to know exactly who is in this country at all times. It is failing on both counts - in my view, irresponsibly and deliberately.
Posted by Dexter Scott | May 9, 2007 8:27 AM