You’ve really gotta hand it to Joel Mowbray: he just won’t let the State Department off the mat, dag bless him. Nor should he. Let the weasels squirm, I say. Here’s a bit from today’s drubbing in the National Review:

The State Department is fighting a terrorism task force’s recommendation that suspected terrorists be denied visas — this is the same department that wants to hold onto the visa-issuance power in a time of war when our enemies want nothing more than entry into the United States.

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage responded to the recommendation by writing to the Justice Department that ‘[believing that] an applicant may pose a threat to national security… is insufficient [grounds] for a consular officer to deny a visa.’ No, this letter wasn’t written before last year’s tragedy; it was written on June 10, 2002, one day shy of the nine-month anniversary of 9/11.

The Justice Department’s Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force (FTTTF) made a very common-sense request: deny visas to people who may well be terrorists. State refuses to do it, even though the law requires it; the Immigration and Naturalization Act clearly provides for keeping out people suspected of being national-security threats: ‘[If] a consular officer knows, or has reasonable ground to believe, [an alien] is engaged in, or is likely to engage after entry, in any terrorist activity’ the officer can deny the visa to the alien.

State’s position is no surprise, as the department has repeatedly stressed the notion of ‘fundamental fairness’ for foreign visa applicants. Even in the wake of the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, State believes that all foreigners should be treated with ‘fundamental fairness,’ even if that means issuing visas to suspected terrorists.

Mowbray goes on in the article to implicate Colin Powell directly in State’s distortion of the truth (Mowbray’s characterization), noting that “Powell is intent on making sure Homeland Security won’t have a real say in keeping terrorists from getting visas.”

Excellent stuff.

[Related: A State Department official cancels her boss’ National Review subscription, only to find that her boss wasn’t a paying subscriber, but rather received a complimentary copy of the magazine. Oops.]

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