Although the New York Times enthusiastically supports the appointment of Janet Napolitano as Homeland Security secretary, they fear a downside for the state of Arizona. Evil Republicans would be left in charge. The Times editorial lays out the tone of their concern starting with the very title: "State of Fear." You can pretty much tell the liberal Times attitude towards Republicans right from the get-go of their editorial (emphasis mine):
If Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona is confirmed as homeland security secretary, she will leave behind a state in full Republican control, with immigration zealots embedded in both houses of the Legislature, and not enough moderates to go around.
"Moderates" according to the Times meaning would be "liberal open borders Democrats."
That is the down side of President-elect Barack Obama’s decision to bring Ms. Napolitano to Washington. For years, she has been the most powerful voice of reason in a state that continues to hatch some of the dumbest, cruelest ideas anywhere for getting tough on immigrants. This is the border state that brought us the Minutemen, where duly elected Yosemite Sams keep thinking up new ways to brand illegal immigrants as a class of undesirables and criminals.
Their goal is to make immigrants’ lives so miserable that they have no choice but to abandon their lives, jobs and families and move away.
Evil Republican "zealots" who want to enforce our immigration laws. Shame on them! And the Times goes even more berserk on the topic of the "zealots":
One of Governor Napolitano’s major achievements for two terms has been simply to veto bill after bill on the xenophobes’ long wish list. Those many noxious measures would have required the police to become federal immigration enforcers, denied day laborers’ speech rights, rejected the 14th Amendment guarantee of citizenship to children born in the United States, created a state militia, allowed the police to arrest the undocumented for trespassing and made English the official language.
Ms. Napolitano’s successor as governor would be the secretary of state, Jan Brewer, a Republican who is expected to be far more willing to sign whatever tough immigration measures get to her desk. That puts the burden of levelheadedness on the new speaker of the House, Kirk Adams, a conservative Republican who, to his credit, has a reputation for understanding that immigration extremism can be bad for business.
None of the changes in Arizona’s capital will have much effect on one of the state’s worst actors, Joe Arpaio, the aggressive sheriff of Maricopa County who has taken the pursuit of the undocumented to unconstitutional extremes.
Of course, the Times doesn't list what "unconstitutional extremes" the highly popular Joe Arpaio has instituted.
Ms. Napolitano has been criticized for not taking a tougher stance against Sheriff Arpaio, although she did cut off some of his state financing. There isn’t much anyone in Arizona can do to stop the sheriff, since he is an elected official who has just won a fifth term.
But...but if he instituted "unconstitional extremes," couldn't 5-term sheriff Arpaio be impeached? I mean the Times did imply he was acting unconstitionally. They wouldn't be fibbing would they? The Times ends on a happy note (for them) over the fact that with Napolitano at the helm of Homeland Security, borders will become even more porous than they already are:
Here lies the brightest side of Ms. Napolitano’s promotion to the top federal immigration job. She can do what she has been imploring Washington to do for years: reassert federal control over immigration enforcement duties that have been randomly and haphazardly delegated to state and local governments; put enough meaningful enforcement resources at the border and in the workplace; and promote sensible reforms that allow immigrants to enter legally and to work safely in jobs where their rights and dignity are protected.
We suggest she start by reining in the 287(g) program, which deputizes local police as federal immigration posses and is so frighteningly prone to abuse. That is probably the best hope of stopping Arizona’s own Sheriff Arpaio.
And allowing illegal immigration to flow across the border at an even greater rate than is currently the case. Oh, and why doesn't Napolitano, in her new post, recommend that Sheriff Arpaio be impeached for acting unconstitutionally? The prosecutors could point to this New York Times editorial for their laughable "proof."
