Harper Must Deal With Border Blather

(Calgary Herald)

W here do they get these people? Had former president George W. Bush appointed to guard America’s borders a person such as Janet Napolitano who thinks 9/ 11 terrorists entered the U. S. from Canada, those who still respect him would be yet contending with the sneers of those who thought he was a rube surrounded by more rubes. But, President Barack Obama has appointed Napolitano as his Homeland Security Secretary, and that is exactly what she told the CBC’s Washington correspondent, Neil Macdonald, on Monday.

Later, she recanted, saying she had misunderstood the question.

Really? It seemed simple enough. She having declared, “To the extent that terrorists have come into our country, or suspected or known terrorists have entered our country across a border, it’s been across the Canadian border,” Macdonald asked if she was referring to the 9/11 attackers. She replied, “Not just those, but others as well.”

If she wasn’t mentally nimble enough to follow the thread of such an uncomplicated conversation, what else does she not understand? Is it too much to hope a person tapped by the president for high office would exceed the average savvy by a margin proportionate to their promotion? Read the complete editorial here.

Related: Security Failings (Ottawa Citizen); Thickening border an ever-greater obstacle to U.S.-Canada trade (Vancouver Sun); Homeland Rigidity (Chronicle Herald)