The 700-mile fakeout

OK, so you remember way back when the GOP's tactics for winning the election included cracking down on immigrants? It was the usual story: "Democrats want to turn the country into an anti-white pinata farm, but we're tough on people who want to come to America, steal our women and jobs, and make us all speak foreign."

After lots of fierce debate, pretty much the only substantial measure to pass Congress was a GOP-backed,700-mile red herring.... uhm, fence that woud solve all our problems. Except that it has no chance of working, and will never be built.

Critics said the fence does not take into account the extraordinarily varied geography of the 2,000-mile-long border, which cuts through Mexican and U.S. cities separated by a sidewalk, vast scrubland and deserts, rivers, irrigation canals and miles of mountainous terrain. They also say it seems to ignore advances in border security that don't involve construction of a 15-foot-high double fence and to play down what are expected to be significant costs to maintain the new barrier.

And, they say, the estimated $2 billion price tag and the mandate that it be completed by 2008 overlook 10 years of legal and logistical difficulties the federal government has faced to finish a comparatively tiny fence of 14 miles dividing San Diego and Tijuana.

So much for the stupidity angle. But it gets better. By which I mean sleazier.

There also are questions of whether the fence will be more of a symbol to be used in elections than a reality along the border. For one thing, shortly before Congress adjourned, the House and Senate gave the Bush administration leeway to distribute the money allocated for the fence to other projects, including roads, technology and other infrastructure items to support the Department of Homeland Security's preferred option of building a "virtual fence."

And there you have it. The legislation that provides for a 700-mile fence also states that there doesn't have to be a fence. With friends like these, who needs signing statements?