I Was Against Militarizing The Borders Before I Was For It

Now, we're as interested as the next person when the press actually does its job. If by interested you mean we don't really give a rip because we gave up on the MSM a long time ago. If by a long time ago you mean we never really had much faith in people who are just so excited to be able to ask the president what his favorite tree is they almost soil themselves.

Still, we're a little concerned that some of these, for lack of a more appropriate word, journalists may be putting themselves at great risk going up against the Skeletor. It seems that in a 2005 interview with Bill O'Reilly (yes, that Bill O'Reilly) when asked about putting National Guard Troops on the boarder Chertoff said, "I think it would be a horribly overexpensive and very difficult way to manage this problem. I think there's a smarter way to do it."

Ha. That's what you get for thinking without clearing it through Karl Rove. Ask der Geschaftsfuhrer aus die Heimut what he thinks now and you'll get this: The first of 6,000 troops are expected to arrive on the U.S.-Mexico border next month. Michael Chertoff says the National Guard will be part of a comprehensive approach to border security. "We can have a transformative effect on our immigration problem and illegal migration problem that has plagued this country for over 20 years."

So. There it is. As blatant a contradiction as you'll get in an administration filled with contradictions. This is red meat to any reporter with a scintilla of integrity left. Oh look, and here they come. First up, MSNBC's Randy Meier:

MEIER: President Bush wants 6,000 National Guard troops on those borders, serving two or three weeks at a time in stints like that. That means up to 156,000 troops would serve on the border over the next two years or so. And people are asking, "Are we asking too much of the National Guard? We have troops in Iraq; we have troops in Afghanistan; we have a hurricane season coming up. Can they do all of this?"

CHERTOFF: Well, Randy, there are about 450,0000 total members of the National Guard. And all that would be serving at any one time, at most, would be 6,000. So the National Guard's comfortable that this is not going to interfere with the other important missions that the guardsmen do.

MEIER: California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger calls the National Guard plan a Band-Aid fix. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson also said this is a short-term fix.

CHERTOFF: Well, I'm sure the border states are going to support the effort here, which is to use the National Guard as a bridge while we get the Border Patrol recruiting process to the point that we can add 6,000 more permanent Border Patrol to the border.

MEIER: Mr. Secretary, who will be in charge down there?

Umm...well...OK...maybe Meier doesn't watch Bill O'Reilly. Let's try Soledad O'Brien. She's not just a pretty face you know. Sic 'em Soledad:

S. O'BRIEN: Other people have said -- who are critical will say, you're stretching the National Guard when, in fact, you take National Guard troops and put them in this capacity. Is there not a shortage of National Guard troops in California?

CHERTOFF: Well, I actually spoke to the governor yesterday and what we need to make clear is, first of all, the total number of National Guardsmen is about 450,000. So this is less than 2 percent of the total guard that we would talk about cycling into the border over the next year to two years. Secondly; they wouldn't all come from California.

S. O'BRIEN: More border patrol help would essentially mean you have more people being arrested and you're not really, in the very short term, adding to the detention facilities, are you?

Yeah! Remember what you told Bill O'Reilly about detention facilities you hypocritical son of... wait. What?

Oh look, there's National Public Radio's Michelle Morris. NPR Baby! You're going to bite the big one now Director Death Mask. This will be fun:

Chertoff said the Guard will be used in areas where they already have training: building infrastructure, for example, or conducting helicopter surveillance.

That's it? That's all you got? You're NPR, man. The Republicans hate you because you, like report and stuff. Come on National Public Radio. Public, you know, like in the people. Like...oh never mind. Who's left?

Lou Dobbs? Neil Cavuto? Those guys are to journalism what bananas are to evolution.

Guess we were wrong to be worried. Pass the Stoly will you, Hannity and token is coming on.