So, Basic Honesty Just Died at NBC

Andrea Mitchell, Barack Obama’s unofficial cheerleader on his official cable channel, slammed fiscal conservatives for opposing the Senate’s immigration bill today.

“Here you’ve got the business community, the chambers of commerce, the agriculture community, Evangelicals, Catholics, clergymen, all across the country — and they are not listening because in their districts it doesn’t pay any benefit: There’s no cost for voting against immigration,” Mitchell said [on MSNBC’s Morning Joe].

“The piecemeal approach is basically saying, ‘Let’s throw a lot of money at border security,” she said. “John McCain has pointed out — and he’s been heroic on this issue — he has pointed out that it is a total waste of money, what they did in the Senate, but it is political cover. But just to do border security and nothing else — these fiscal conservatives ought to be ashamed.”

Common sense says that the above comments denote Mitchell taking a side in the immigration debate. Common sense is apparently not the norm at NBC News.

“Andrea has not taken a position on this issue,” said Erika Masonhall, the director of NBC News communications. “In the full context of her comments, she was noting that business and agriculture interests, clergy, and labor communities have all said the current policy is unsustainable, and that there is no economic argument for doing nothing or only adding to border security.”

Obviously Mitchell did take a position, so Ms. Masonhall opens her statement with an obvious lie.

She and her network may not be aware that there are relevant arguments other than economic with regard to immigration. Border security is primarily a national security issue. Allowing millions of people to flout the law and then rewarding them for doing so, in any way, undermines the basic rule of law. Neither of those arguments are economic. Both are arguably more important than economic arguments, as they touch strongly on basic national sovereignty and civil order.