Defends -- Protects Countries in Continents

As the old saying around Washington goes, when life gives you an immigration crisis (real crisis not included), make pork. Today one reads in the New York Times:

The quick fix may involve sending in the National Guard. But to really patch up the broken border, President Bush is preparing to turn to a familiar administration partner: the nation's giant military contractors.

Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, three of the largest, are among the companies that said they would submit bids within two weeks for a multibillion-dollar federal contract to build what the administration calls a "virtual fence" along the nation's land borders.

Sorry, but I can't help but have an image of Marcel Marceau leaning up against that "virtual fence." After all, we might as well keep out the Frenchies and the Mexicans, if we can do it. You do have to hand it to the White House and how it gets more brazen, for if Bush truly is dyslexic, there can be no better acronym for what he has proposed -- Strategic Border Initiative.

The Times also goes on to report...

The winner, which is due to be selected before October [gee, does October come before November?], will not be given a specific dollar commitment. Instead, each package of equipment and management solutions the contractor offers will be evaluated and bought individually.

"We're not just going to say, 'Oh, this looks like some neat stuff, let's buy it and then put it on the border,'" Homeland Securty Security Chertoff said at a news conference on Tuesday.

Chertoff continued, "Nope, we're going to say, which of these companies will give us the most money and help us get Republicans elected in the most crucial districts? After all, the hallmark of good government is killing two birds with one federal contract."