Fact Check Of The Day

One of the "tricks" that people use to make somebody look bad is to take quotes from that person, where they don't say what they intend to say, and come across saying something that would/should/could prove them to be stupid. (Obama's often-ridiculed quote from when he was campaigning that he had "visited 57 states" when it was plainly obvious he meant "47 states" is a good example. John McCain's "veto every single beer" quote where he mashed up "veto every single bill with earmarks" is another.)

When misquotes are taken for what they are and a little teasing ensues, that's fine. We all get tongue-tied from time to time, and can laugh at it.

However, when somebody tries to take a misquote and claim that the person who made that misquote actually believes what they said, that is not fair.

Today, Michelle Malkin is claiming that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano believes that illegal aliens crossing the border into the United States illegally are not commiting a crime.

What Janet Napolitano said: "What we have to do is target the real evil-doers in this business, the employers who consistently hire illegal labor, the human traffickers who are exploiting human misery. And yes, when we find illegal workers, yes, appropriate action, some of which is criminal, most of that is civil, because crossing the border is not a crime per se. It is civil. But anyway, going after those as well."

This quote is obviously a little bit more in depth and difficult to explain away than the "veto every single beer" quote, but going back and reading the entire conversation, it quickly becomes obvious that the point Janet Napolitano accidentally made was not the point she was intending to make.

What she was attempting to say... and ultimately missing the mark... was part of a discussion about the possibility of criminal prosecution of every illegal alien apprehended in The United States. In her misspoken statement, she was continuing on with an earlier point she made that the U.S. Justice system doesn't have the manpower to handle the millions of criminal prosecutions that would result, and that (a) America has to use its judicial resources on the prosecution of serious immigration crimes first and foremost, and (b) the simple crime of crossing the border illegally is something that could be tried in a civil court. She was just trying to channel too many thoughts at once into the conversation.

(Let's face it: What she was trying to say was correct. Could you imagine how many judges and lawyers and years it would require to try and convict 10 million illegal aliens? Also, our jails are already overcrowded. Could you imagine if we added to our current prison population an additional 10 million people?)

Anyway, the lesson to take away from this is that whenever you read a quote from somebody that leaves your jaw on the floor, take a minute to go back and see if the quote was really unambiguous, and whether it really reflected the course of the conversation up to that point, and the speaker's intentions.

And if, ultimately, you cannot decide one way or the other on the speaker's intentions, ask yourself — with an honest assessment of the speaker's intelligence — whether the person really could have meant what he or she said. (Hint for this instance: It's probably a pretty safe bet that the person most responsible for protecting America's borders knows that it is a crime to cross them illegally.)