Tom Horne, Arizona's superintendent of schools and candidate for state attorney general, is standing by his comments that terrorism is no longer a problem in Israel after they built -- in the words of Senator John McCain -- a "danged fence."
At a Tea Party rally earlier this month -- in a strong suggestion that a border wall between the United States and Mexico needs to be completed -- Horne told tea-baggers, "Israel totally put a stop to terrorism by building their wall."
Check out the audio, compliments of Nick Martin at Heat City, here.
We spoke to Horne this morning and, despite giving him several opportunities to retract his comments, Horne, rather, tried to explain them.
"Terrorism [in Israel] -- as a major problem -- I think was solved by the wall," Horne tells us.
Horne went on to say he remembers constantly hearing about bombings at pizza parlors or "discotheques," but since the wall was built, there have only been some "minor incidents."
"It was a terrible problem," he says. "You always used to read about it in the newspapers and see it on TV."
Despite Horne's claim that "Israel totally put a stop to terrorism by building their wall," the statistics from the Israeli Security Agency tell a different story -- a story that includes 176 terrorist attacks in Israel in March and April of this year alone, including the shooting death of two Israeli officers and a foreign worker killed by a rocket attack.
Those may be "minor incidents" by comparison, but the terrorism problem in Israel seems far from over.
We gave Horne a chance to modify his comments and say terrorism had been "reduced" by the fence, but he didn't accept our gracious offer to amend his comments.
"This was just a side comment about border security, I didn't think it would start an argument," Horne says.
Too late.
