Friday, February 22, 2008

Michelle Malkin on Barbara Jordan

Michelle Malkin's post today on Barbara Jordan had this to say:

Last night, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton invoked the late Texas congresswoman Barbara Jordan as a hero and mentor (transcript).

Jordan, a black Democrat who was a staunch advocate of immigration enforcement and border control, was a true maverick.

She didn’t just pay lip service to border security as all of today’s presidential candidates do. She meant what she said. If Clinton and Obama bothered to pay attention to what Jordan stood for, I highly doubt they would be so eager to wrap themselves in her legacy.

This is gratifying to see. The first presidential election I could vote in was in 1976, the year Jimmy Carter won. I wrote in "Barbara Jordan (D-TX)."

I didn't really know what she stood for, just that I was a Democrat and she was a Democrat and very well respected, and she wasn't Jimmy Carter. It's good to see that the values I hold today about immigration are the ones she held back in 1995, when she testified before the House immigration committee. Malkin quotes Jordan's summary of her position:

Credibility in immigration policy can be summed up in one sentence: those who should get in, get in; those who should be kept out, are kept out; and those who should not be here will be required to leave.

That's exactly right. Read the full transcript of her testimony here.

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