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Boucher maintains, "the fact is now the situation is different," but State's selection of the protégé of Mary Ryan — the pioneer of the "courtesy culture" and Visa Express — to become the top enforcer of visa policies says otherwise. Maura Harty is a careerist at State, and she has been groomed by Ryan to succeed her as the head of Consular Affairs (CA), the division within the State Department that oversees consulates and visa issuance. State wants to pretend that all the new standards they claim have been put in place since 9/11 are sufficient. But given that State had ample opportunity before 9/11 to keep the terrorists out by simply enforcing the law, the lack of advanced technology wasn't the problem. State's culture was — and still is. Culture rots from the top down, and while Harty may be "technically proficient" — a phrase embraced by her former colleagues and some of her current Hill supporters — she is simply not the kind of person who can change the underlying nature of CA. The only way to truly change course at Consular Affairs is with fresh blood from the outside. CA needs someone who can stand up to the entrenched interests that want to coddle foreign governments, and by extension, compromise our border security. Harty's nomination has only gotten as far as it has due to a combination of politics and ignorance. Because she is technically a Republican nominee, some senators on the Foreign Relations Committee didn't scrutinize Harty out of a misguided sense of party loyalty. The position to which Harty is nominated is far too important to be granted the traditional deference afforded the White House for one simple reason: We are at war. And in this war, one key element of the enemy's strategy is to get its operatives into our country. The moment American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center, the top spot at CA became a national-security position. One senator who understands what is at stake is Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.): "At the same time that members of Congress are beating their chests about little pieces of information that may or may not have made a difference, the untold story is that the terrorists never would have been in the country in the first place if State had simply followed the law." Kyl adds, Harty can't simply wash her hands clean of those visa issuances since "she was a top official as part of the team that was making the decisions that allowed this to happen." While Kyl and a number of other senators are concerned about such a lackluster candidate for such a vital post, the strongest Hill defense of Harty boils down to claiming that she's "competent." Harty may well be a "competent" bureaucrat, but one look at the terrorists' visa applications (obtained exclusively by NR) makes clear that CA needs a thorough housecleaning. As of her confirmation hearing last week, however, Harty hadn't even seen them. What we need is a top official at CA who would tape those applications to his bedroom wall so that they were the last thing he sees every night and the first thing he sees when he wakes up — all as a constant reminder that visas unlawfully issued to terrorists should never happen again. But unless the Senate demands a dynamic leader to head up CA, the odds are higher that it will. — Joel Mowbray is an NRO contributor and a Townhall.com columnist. |
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a press briefing Wednesday, the State Department's top press flak, Richard
Boucher, dismissed 
