Well, that didn’t take long.
In the traditional pattern of American politics, a politician who (you’d think) should know better gives an answer that he really means that gets him hot water or that he doesn’t mean that gets him in hot water. Then, a day later, he a)distances himself from it once it becomes too controversial and can hurt him and b)tries to blame it on the press or something else when he is presumably not a ventriloquist dummy and has free will to move his lips and answer a journalist question as he so chooses. And so it is with Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who wants to be President but seems to be in a race for the bottom. His campaign is trying to clarify, i.e. do damage control — especially given the response of Canada’s Defense Minister:
Scott Walker believes the idea of building a wall along the U.S.-Canada border is a “legitimate issue” — a statement that isn’t going over so well with Canada’s defense minister.
During his appearance Sunday on “Meet the Press,” the Wisconsin governor and GOP presidential candidate was asked why he is so focused on securing the border with Mexico to thwart terrorists when one of the highest-profile incidents involved the northern border.“Some people have asked us about that in New Hampshire. They raised some very legitimate concerns, including some law enforcement folks that brought that up to me at one of our town hall meetings about a week and a half ago. So that is a legitimate issue for us to look at,” Walker said about building a wall along the Canada-U.S. border.
Later in the day he tweeted that he wouldn’t ignore concern expressed from law enforcement.A spokeswoman for Walker’s campaign said that he wasn’t calling for a wall specifically, he was just expressing concern over the issue.
“Despite the attempts of some to put words in his mouth, Gov. Walker wasn’t advocating for a wall along our northern border. Chuck asked about it and Gov. Walker said based on what he’s hearing from people there are security concerns that need to be addressed,” AshLee Strong said to POLITICO.
Actually, that’s a good statement to try and limit damage control but doesn’t quite fit his answer to the question. GO HERE to read more. If Walker was a more nimble politician, he would have dismissed the idea as one out of the political Twlight Zone. More effective security along the U.S. Canada issue is one thing; Walker was saying it was “legitimate” to discuss building a loooooooooooooooooooong wall.
Sorry. Not the same thing.
Meanwhile, here’s the reaction in Canada:
The Wisconsin governor received some heat for the comments, including from Canada’s defense minister Jason Kenney who fired back during a press conference Sunday saying the relatively open border was key for trade partnerships, and that the country would “vigorously oppose any thickening of the border.”
“I would remind that governor or anyone else in the United States of the enormous progress that we have made beyond the [border] agreement that Prime Minister Harper signed with President Obama, which massively improves continental perimeter security,” he said. “As you know, we often find there are some American political actors who are not aware of the progress that has been made on continental security.”
“So we’ll continue to remind our American friends that Canada has taken extraordinary efforts to ensure the joint security and you know I don’t think—quite frankly I can tell you as the former minister of immigration, that Canada has a much greater legitimate concern about the northward flow of illegal migration than the United States does of a southward flow of illegal migration,” Kenney said.
Politico also got a statement from the Canadian Embassy:
“Our shared border services the world’s largest trading relationship,” spokeswoman Christine Constantin said, going on to list statistics about the economic benefits. She also said: “It is a fact that no terrorists have been successful in attacking the United States coming through the Canadian border. All of the terrorists responsible for 911 were in the United States with visas issued by the U.S. government.”
Walker’s rivals also seized on the remarks.
This an example of Walker doing the kind of unforced error that suggests the GOP wouldn’t be wise in putting its party’s White House and Congressional fates in his hands in 2016. This was the kind of a mistake a rookie politician might make. Unless he thinks a 5,000 mile long border wall with Canada is a peachy idea, he should have responded by saying it’s impossible to build, wouldn’t work, and there’s no major crisis at the Canadian border to warrant it.
Or just the truth: it’s a stupid idea.
But pandering to a perceived constituency as you watch your polling numbers drop can make you say stupid things.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.