Perhaps Arizona’s Gov. Jan Brewer is a Washington Irving fan. Or perhaps she is a liar, or insane:
Jan Brewer has lost her head.
The Arizona governor, seemingly determined to repel every last tourist dollar from her pariah state, has sounded a new alarm about border violence. “Our law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert either buried or just lying out there that have been beheaded,” she announced on local television.
Ay, caramba! Those dark-skinned foreigners are now severing the heads of fair-haired Americans? Maybe they’re also scalping them or shrinking them or putting them on a spike.
But those in fear of losing parts north of the neckline can relax. There’s not a follicle of evidence to support Brewer’s claim.
The Arizona Guardian Web site checked with medical examiners in Arizona’s border counties, and the coroners said they had never seen an immigration-related beheading. I called and e-mailed Brewer’s press office requesting documentation of decapitation; no reply.
The Pensito Review points out how bizarre it is for a state’s top elected officials to diss their own state — especially when the content of the disparagement isn’t even true:
It’s freakishly unusual for governors and senators to smear the reputations of their states by exaggerating crime statistics. …
The fact that the Arizona law is premised on a pack of lies is proof that its purpose is purely political — that it is just another attempt by Republicans to gin up votes among their racist base. As with California’s Proposition 187 in 1994, it will almost undoubtedly work in the short term. Gov. Brewer and Sen. McCain will likely win big this fall, just as Gov. Pete Wilson did on the coattails of Prop 187 when it passed with 59 percent of the vote 16 years ago.
But if what happened in California is a guide, over the long-term, this bogus law could permanently alienate conservative and independent Latino voters from the GOP for generations to come.
Earlier in the week, Gov. Brewer canceled a joint conference of Mexican and U.S. governors scheduled to be held in Phoenix in September, after the six Mexican governors informed her they did not want to go to Arizona.
On Wednesday, Brewer spokesman Paul Senseman reiterated that the governor felt she had no choice but to scuttle the meeting since the Mexican governors already had expressed their unwillingness to attend.
“From Governor Brewer’s perspective, this decision was made by the Mexican governors,” said Senseman, who added that the governor had also invited all the participants to Arizona to meet with her and law-enforcement officials about SB 1070 and their concerns. He said that [the] invitation still stands.
California’s Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico are trying to find another place to hold the meeting, and indicated that Brewer’s unilateral decision to cancel the conference was inappropriate:
California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and New Mexico governor Bill Richardson want the meeting to go on.
Richardson said, “Governor Brewer doesn’t have the authority to cancel the Border Governor’s Conference. She may not want to host it for political reasons, but that’s not a reason to sidestep the tough issues that border governors must address.”
Gov. Brewer continues to believe that this is all about her:
“I would have liked to believe that they would have shown support for the governor of Arizona and for the people of Arizona,” Brewer said, adding that she wasn’t sure if she would attend a relocated conference. “I’d have to look at my schedule,” she said.
And if it goes on as planned during the second week of September? “Well, you know, a lot has happened since we’ve cleared off those dates,” the governor responded.
[…]
Brewer … said she believes each [of the Mexican governors] did not make the decision on his own. She said they were “acting under the direction, I believe, of President (Felipe) Calderón that they ought not to participate.”The location of the annual event of both government and business leaders rotates from year to year, and this year it was supposed to be Arizona’s turn. But with the Mexican governors decision not to attend, Brewer notified them that “I find no appropriate alternative to cancellation.”
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