The Democratic Party used to be led by principled statesmen like Harry Truman, who famously took responsibility for the good and bad decisions he made.
Today, Democrats in Arizona are led by a cautious, careful, calculating politician who won’t even take responsibility for her own flip-flops. She has shifted blame and passed the buck to anyone and everyone else.
Today she is in Washington again blaming Congress for illegal immigration. In the past she has blamed President Bush. Last week she was blaming Robert Medina, who is leaving his job as Arizona’s top federal immigration official. The Arizona Republic wrote this:
“Napolitano’s decision to go public with her feud with Medina, however, has more to do with the popular governor’s campaign for re-election in a state at the forefront of the national political debate over illegal immigration, experts say. By attacking Medina … the Democratic governor hopes to deflect damage from Republican opponents who claim she hasn’t done enough to fight illegal immigration.”
Arizona needs a governor who will stop passing the buck and start taking action to secure the border. We need a governor who will take responsibility for a colossal error in judgment that has allowed our borders to remain wide open.
Less than three years ago, Janet Napolitano said this:
“So even if we thought [putting the National Guard on the border] was a good idea — and I don’t think it is a good idea — we wouldn’t have the manpower to do it.”
Now, she says, “As a result of my urging, the Bush administration … has adopted my plan to increase National Guard activities on our border with Mexico…”.
It’s one thing to change your mind. It’s another to act like your first mistake never happened. I’m still waiting for Janet to acknowledge that she was wrong about the National Guard. As a husband and father of eight kids, including five teenagers, I’m really good at saying, “I was wrong.” As far as I can tell, those words have never passed the mouth of our current governor.
Instead, all we see is more and more blame shifting.