Ain't that reassuring? . . . On today's Meet the Press, John Kerry told Chuck Todd that "for the most part" we know who's entering our country. Kerry's statement came after he boasted about the Obama admin's "huge process" for vetting visa applicants. Not huge enough to catch Tafsheen Malik. Knowing for "the most part" who is entering the US is dangerously insufficient, given the hundreds of thousands of "refugees" and other immigrants from Muslim lands that President Obama wants to admit.
Also troubling was Kerry's response to Todd's question, whether, given that Malik had posted her radical views online before being admitted, we will begin searching the social media of would-be immigrants,. Kerry said we are looking into "whether there are means and whether we should," examine social media. If Kerry can't give an emphatic "yes" to both questions, how can we continue to admit people who might be out to kill us?
Note: Kerry kvetches that the rise of social media has created "a whole new burden" for his State Department bureaucrats. Poor babies. But he couldn't be more wrong. It's not a "burden." It's a treasure trove. Terrorists like Malik are outing themselves, making it easier to pick them off—if only that wouldn't offend the delicate sensibilities of the Obama administration.
Note Deux: We simple folk speak of ISIS. Most in the Obama admin employ "ISIL." In the interview, Kerry one-upped the cool speak, using "Daesh."
CHUCK TODD: You've spent a lot of time with a lot of diplomats from around the world. What's been their reaction to Donald Trump's proposal to temporarily ban Muslim immigration into the united States?
JOHN KERRY: Well, those people who know the United States well are quite shocked because they see it as totally contrary to American values, as discriminatory and, frankly as potentially dangerous in that it seems like a person running for President of the United States, is doing well in the polls, is prepared to take actions that would, in fact, ratify the notion that people are at war against Islam, not against Daesh. And so I think you have to be very careful just by categorizing people by being Muslim. That is discrimination and it is contrary, I think, to the fundamental values of our country. We have plenty of ways to vet people. We already do it! We have a huge process of examining people for visas. We know who's coming into our country for the most part.
TODD: You're talking about a review of the State Department. The wife in the San Bernardino terrorist attack, it turned out, she'd been communicating radical beliefs on social media before she applied for her fiance visa. That's not something that's done during the vetting process. Is that something that now needs to be done during the vetting process? Does that now need to be something that's done in the visa-vetting process: a look at social media, things like that?
KERRY: The review has been ordered and we need to look at whether there are means and whether we should be and how we can do it. But clearly the social media has placed a whole new burden and a whole new set of questions but not impossible ones to resolve and I think we need to look at this very, very carefully which what we're doing before we jump to a wholesale prohibition without understanding what the implications may be.
