President Obama is a man of many varieties of incompetence. Lately on display is his administration’s completely incoherent border policy, illustrated by a spate of recent articles.
In late April, Arizona’s Governor Jan Brewer signed a law that allows police officers to check for immigration status when they stop somebody for suspected crimes, or when they are in the pursuit of some other legitimate purpose. It immediately caused a firestorm of controversy, with immigration advocates dismayed and immigration opponents triumphant.
Obama and key members of his administration immediately went on the attack, sensing a great opportunity to play racial politics with an eye to winning Latino votes in the fall, saying that the law would allow racial profiling. As Obama put it — the racial activist in him raging — the law would permit the police to harass innocent Latinos taking their kids out for ice cream. Leftist commentators conjured up visions of Nazi storm troopers, guns drawn, stopping frightened, cowering people and screaming, “Vere are your papers?!? Your papers!!!”
At the state dinner held in his honor, Mexican President Felipe Calderón heaped contempt on the bill, with Obama looking on approvingly. Calderón, curiously, did not suggest that the U.S. adopt Mexico’s own enlightened, humane laws and procedures for dealing with its own undocumented workers.
The hysteria went on for weeks. But then a funny thing happened. The propaganda campaign failed. Polls showed that the intense debate about the bill solidified the public, true enough — but no doubt to the surprise of the Obama regime, the vast majority of Americans supported the bill.
Credit this to the counter-media (Fox News, talk radio, and the multitude of blogs) covering the actual content of the law. But credit also the administration’s own hacks, such as Attorney General Eric Holder, people who publicly opined on the bill but when asked if they had read it, had to admit they hadn’t.
Then came a flurry of articles indicating just how confused the Administration of Fools really was. As Sunlen Miller reported on the ABC News website (May 25), Obama announced he had authorized a call-up of 1,200 National Guard troops to the Arizona-Mexico border and was requesting $500 million in supplemental funds. This money and personnel would, in the dull prose of the administration, “provide intelligence; surveillance and reconnaissance support; intelligence analysis; immediate support to counternarcotics enforcement; and training capacity until Customs and Border Patrol can recruit and train additional officers and agents to serve on that border.”
Immediately Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) thanked Obama for the help, and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) complained that “it’s simply not enough.” He said that 6,000 troops were needed. But Obama’s action seemed to validate Arizona’s action.
The next day saw even more developments. The NBC- DFW website ran a piece pointing out that Texas governor Rick Perry had over the last year and a half been sending letters to Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and Department of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano requesting national guard troops for the Texas-Mexico border, but had yet to get any response. Not even a letter saying “No!”
Then, on the same day, the Fox News website reported that the selfsame Janet Napolitano (a.k.a. “Big Sister”) had alerted Texas authorities to be on the lookout for a suspected member of a Somalia-based terrorist group who might be trying to sneak across the border. It was thought that he might act as a recruiter for Somali-Americans to go back to Somalia to train as terrorists. So Napolitano was telling the Texans to watch out for terrorists crossing their border, but she wouldn’t send anyone to help. This may be one reason why she is widely and rightly viewed as a clueless clown.
And on that very day, as noted on the Breitbart website, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley announced that the troops Obama had just approved the day before would not be used to stop illegal aliens. No, no; they would only be used to “interdict the flow of dangerous people and dangerous goods — drugs, guns, people.” Left unexplained is how you can tell whether somebody crossing the border illegally is a criminal, as opposed to just an alien, without . . . asking for his papers.
The message from the administration is as clear as mud: Arizona is wrong, but it’s right. Texas doesn’t need to guard its borders, but it does.
