"My Top Priority Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow"
By Byron York
John McCain at his appearance this morning before the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials: QUESTION: As the next president of the United States of America, will comprehensive immigration reform, and not just enforcement, be one of your top policy priorities in your first 100 days in office? MCCAIN: It will be my top priority yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
My Top Priority," Cont'd [Byron York]
Just got this note from Mike Goldfarb at the McCain campaign:
Byron,
Would be most grateful if you would also note in your item that immediately following the line you post, McCain emphasized that we must secure our borders. He also said several times during his speech and the question and answer that we must secure the borders first:
QUESTIONER: Senator, you have been a leader on immigration reform in the Senate but unfortunately Congress has failed to make progress on this very critical issue. As the next President of the Unites States of America will comprehensive immigration reform, and not just enforcement, be one of your top policy priorities in you're first 100 days in office?
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: It will be my top priority yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And my friends, thank you for the question, and let me just review for you again, we tried. I reached across the aisle to Senator Ted Kennedy, and by the way I know that he's in your prayers, and we worked in bipartisan fashion. And we were defeated. And by the way, it wasn't very popular, let's have some straight talk, with some in my party, and so I did that and worked together so we could carry out a federal responsibility. We have to secure our borders, that's the message. But we also must proceed with a temporary worker program that is verifiable and truly temporary, we must also understand that there are 12 million people who are here and they are here illegally and they are God's children, they are God's children and they will be treated in a humane fashion based on the principle obviously that someone who comes here legally cannot have priority over someone who comes here illegally. Could I mention to you, last Fourth of July I was in Baghdad, I was invited by General Petraeus to attend a ceremony where 688 brave young Americans decide to reenlist and stay and fight for America. There was also a group of people, 166 of them, that decided that they wanted to accelerate their path to citizenship. They were not citizens of this country but they chose to serve in harm's way in defense of freedom in the military of the Unites States, I was deeply moves by this, that's what America is all about.
QUESTIONER: Thank you Senator
SEN. MCCAIN: Immigration reform will be my top priority because we have the obligation to address a federal issue from a federal stand point. I will reach across the aisle once again and work in a bipartisan fashion. We will resolve the immigration issue in American and we will secure our borders.
The McCain campaign says that in the answer above, McCain fumbled the words "legally" and "illegally" when he said that "someone who comes here legally cannot have priority over someone who comes here illegally," and they want to assure readers he was not setting some bold new policy. As for the armchair psychologists among Corner readers, have at it.
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