Border Wars
- wadE
If you haven't heard, the latest great idea from the Bush administration on dealing with illegal
immigration is to bolster border patrols with the National Guard.
I'm not sure if marching along the Rio Grande is truly a better assignment than going to Iraq, but
adding 10,000 Guardmen to the border is a bit like putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound.
Although my math tells me that 10,000 Guards on a 2,000 mile border means 1 guard for every .2 miles.
Now that might actually work! :-)
The best thing I read is that Mexican President Vincente Fox is concerned about the possibility
of a militarized border. Bush tells him that it's only the National Guard, not the army. Like that means
they won't have guns or something?
At any rate it seems like yet another example of short-sighted policy this administration (and
many Republicans) are known for. Caught with a couple of ounces of illegal drugs? Well it's off to
prison with you for 5 years. Caught robbing a store, well, off to jail too, but you'll be out in 2 years.
Go figure...
At this lowest of low points (for any president) I was thinking the only way for Bush to come out of this
without the tag of "worst president since Hoover" (which is a little unfair to Hoover, he was actually a
very smart and compassionate man, I think the true blame falls with his two predecessors, Coolidge and
Harding...but I digress)... I was thinking the only things Bush could do was to dump his cabinet and
advisors and try to fulfill his promise of being a "uniter" and find a way to get something... anything ...
accomplished in his last two years. What does he have to lose at this point? He won't be pursuing any
other office from here on out. His own party is abandoning him as mid year elections are coming. Most of
the nation views him as ineffectual (at best) and a liar (at worst). Why not do something dramatic?
However, I'm thinking that's pretty unlikely. Doing something like that takes bravery, wisdom, and
just a touch of crazy. But Bush has only got one of those three...
What do you think? Drop us a line at webmaster@simpleprop.com and give us some
feedback. Maybe we'll even run your letters in future Gambits. 'The Daily Gambit' is updated every weekday.
