News about a new law in Arizona that allows police to determine if a suspected criminal is a citizen, is being attacked by a legion of highly educated critics who have not bothered to educate themselves by reading the law they criticize. 

               The text of the law is readily available on several web sites.  For instance:  http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070s.pdf  .  To read the text and the changes made as it evolved, plus commentary, see: http://www.keytlaw.com/blog/2010/04/anti-illegal-immigration-law-part-1/

               As the anti-Arizona law bandwagon of the self blind-folded, educated elite rolled onto Main Street, President Obama jumped on board.  The Arizona law, he said, “threaten(s) to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans.”

               The Arizona law largely requires state law enforcement officials to enforce with existing federal law.  Example: the requirement that non-citizens carry identification papers, a federal law since 1940.  The President and other critics should have the decency to cite what particular words and phrases in the Arizona law make them charge Arizonans with racism and ethnic prejudice.

               However, this is the same president and former professor of Constitutional law and former Editor of Harvard Law Review who called a Rhode Island cop “stupid” before he knew the facts about why the cop arrested a man who seemed to be breaking into a house.  This is the same president who pronounced an accused terrorist guilty before trial and promised he would be executed.

               And this is the same president and these are his same supporters who insisted that Americans support a 2000 page, $1 trillion law to transform American health care before anyone, including most of them, had a chance to read it.  That bill, of course, is often unintelligible and ambiguous.  The Arizona law is clear and unambiguous.

               Pundits of all stripes often tout this president as being our smartest president in a century.  Here too they cite nothing specific.  On the Arizon law the President has yet another chance to demonstrate not only his intelligence but his respect for his critics' intelligence. 

          Perhaps the Arizona law has some grievous flaws that are not apparent to a non-lawyer who reads the actual text.  Mr. President, you promised to be a healer, a reconciler, a man who honors honest debate and listens to good argument.  So, please cite the text and give us your good argument.  If we are misreading some important clauses, please correct our reading rather than assault our intelligence.