Posted by
Patrick Henry on Wednesday, April 28, 2010 3:08:58 PM
After Janet Napolitano's recent galactically stupid testimony before congress, there
are varying versions as to what the DHS acronym stands for. One is that it, like the
department it signifies, means absolutely nothing, since nothing is what it is doing to
secure the nation's borders. A more appropriate version I heard yesterday was "Dumb
Homeland Secretary."
Only a sleazy partisan politician would appoint to head a federal agency a person
who was born with one foot stuffed in her mouth up to the kneecap. Hearing her
pronouncements that "the border is as secure as it ever was" (which is saying nothing
since it has never really been secured), and that the Border Patrol is better qualified to
secure the borders than the National Guard (she opposes sending troops to Arizona),
one might understandably ask what planet she lives on. Offering her former governorship
there as a credential, she added "I think I know that border as well as anyone."
Is there something deranging about the water in Washington, D.C.? To argue that a
foreign border riddled with drug running, human trafficking and a human wave of illegals
crossing daily is in any way "secure," is sheer lunacy. I wonder when the secretary was
last in Pinal County, or how she would feel about driving around there alone at night?
It is virtually impossible to reach any conclusion other than that she is too dense to make
the most elemementary connection between cause and effect, or else that she is purposely
dissembling to protect the Obama administration's clear open borders policy. Take your
choice. Either way it's a travesty that such a person persists in a cabinet level appointment,
or that she landed it in the first place.
Unlike some other things I could mention, incompetence trickles uphill. If the drivel she
is feeding congress is the official line of the Obama administration, then they had best
write off the border states in the next election. And if the seeming detachment from
reality, working at cross purposes with state governments and turning a deaf ear to
national sentiment is the strategy in which they plan to persist, then they are in trouble
not only in November, but in 2012 as well. Napolitano's incompetence, density and out-
rageous statements paint Barack Obama in a bad light, not the other way around. If he
wants to salvage what little is left of his own image of competence, he should consider
replacing her immediately with someone who, if just as inept, will have the good sense
to keep his/her mouth shut thereby concealing the fact from the whole world.
A new, and extremely sane consensus is emerging among those of moderation in the
Senate, where they have agreed to table action on amnesty until the borders are first
secured. Duh, what a concept! A large group of bipartisan legislators has sent a letter
to Obama requesting that he send the Guard to the border, armed and authorized to
defend themselves against any attack. Congress is cleverly putting election year distance
between members and the notion that they favor open borders, as Obama does, and
they are placing a formidable buffer between themselves and the rising demand from
Latino advocacy groups that they act promptly on "immigration reform."
Napolitano has to go the way of most incompetents. The National Guard, along with
their guns, needs to go to the Arizona border. Eric Holder needs to go the remotest
spot in Washington's Rock Creek Park, utter his best primal scream and then leave
Arizona alone. And the ACLU needs to go to . . . well, I can't say that here. I'm sure
you can fill in the blanks. Only when people with common sense start applying real
solutions to obvious problems will issues like this one be resolved. Either we are a
nation of laws or we aren't. If we are, then those laws need to be enforced by whatever
means necessary. Either the president is bound to enforce those laws, or he's not. If
he's not, then why do we need him? It's not about race, gender or class. It's about protecting the rights of all Americans -- including those who are Latinos.