I got me an interesting email a few days ago from a member of the mouth-breathing wing of the Republican Party, boasting that the recent defeat of the Immigration Bill was largely the work of internet titan and Fox News Bimbo Brigade starlet Michelle Malkin. I was further informed that this was proof positive that yours truly was full of shit for claiming Malkin to be a not-particularly-bright featherweight in the world of political punditry. It was good for a laugh, but little else.
.. Except, maybe, for demonstrating just exactly why I consider Michelle Malkin to be a not-particularly-bright featherweight in the world of political punditry.
Please understand that I'd be the last one in the room to defend the recently defeated Immigration Bill on its merits. It wasn't a particularly good piece of legislation, regardless of your stance on any of the major policy issues it attempted to address. That said, it is important to understand that for dimwits like Malkin, rejecting that particular bill had nothing to do with the actual quality of the proposed legislation itself.
Michelle Malkin would have rejected any bill, irrespective of its merit or quality, because in her mind, there can be no compromise on the issue of illegal immigration. And that, quite frankly, is why she's a featherweight. The reality of the situation - and that's what's important here.
.. - is that there is nothing remotely like a politically viable consensus for the sort of policy Michelle Malkin advocates, which is the rejection of any amnesty for illegal immigrants prior to their forcible removal from the United States.
Had there been such a consensus, the Malkin Solution to illegal immigration would have become law during the six years the Republicans controlled both Congress and the White House...
And as we know, it did not. This was not because the standard issue villains - the Democrats - foiled the noble efforts of legislators such as Tom Tancredo, it was because a large number of Republicans simply couldn't buy into the fantasy that is the Malkin Solution. At present the Congressional Budget Office estimates there are roughly 7 million illegal immigrants living in the United States, although it readily concedes that estimates running to up to 10 million could be closer to the truth.
If those sorts of numbers are accurate, the idea that the Department of Homeland Security (and more specifically Immigration and Customs Enforcement) can either stem the current tide of illegal immigration or make any significant reduction in the number of illegal immigrants presently living in the United States with the resources available constitutes one of sillier of Malkin's constructs. In her world, there are hundreds - perhaps thousands - of ICE agents sitting around their offices passing the time playing three pack Canasta, waiting to be turned loose on the bad guys. If only that were the case.
.. In the real world, anyone who has followed the reality of the phenomenon of illegal immigration over the past 25 or so years will tell you exactly what I'm telling you right now: Any and all federal agencies charged with the responsibility for managing and controlling illegal immigration have suffered from chronic underfunding since forever.
It doesn't matter whether its been a Republican or Democrat in the White House, or whether Republicans or Democrats have controlled any or all of Congress, the result has always been the same: The dollars needed to enforce the law have never been available. Today is absolutely no different from yesterday in that regard. And that, more than anything, is why the law isn't being enforced.
Were Michelle Malkin truly serious about illegal immigration, she'd be well aware that there is no chance with this particular Congress for DHS or ICE to get the money needed to shut down our borders and catch and deport our illegal immigrant population. The Republican Party couldn't get that done during the six years they controlled everything lock, stock and barrel, so the idea Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are going to hand Malkin and the Tancredos of the world exactly what they want simply doesn't pass The Laugh Test. And it's important to understand why the dollars haven't been made available.
.. Pushing that sort of spending is a sure political loser irrespective of party affiliation.
What Michelle Malkin is either unaware of, or simply doesn't wish to admit (and in the final analysis, it doesn't really matter which) implementing the sort of immigration policy she advocates will cost over a billion dollars a year, and will generate the sort of political fallout that only the most rabid "no amnesty" politicians will be willing to accept. First of all, let's understand that you cannot secure a 2,000+ mile border and remove 10 million illegal aliens with 300 miles of fence and an additional 1,000 ICE agents. In fact, there really isn't anyone who thinks 1,000 agents can secure our southern border, let alone allow for the removal of significant numbers of the illegal immigrants already here.
To actually add ICE agents at a ratio of 1 per every 1,000 illegal aliens present means adding 10,000 people to the federal payroll, not including another, say, 2,000 support staff. So what we are talking about is adding somewhere between 12,000 and 25,000 agents at between $75,000 and $100,000 (salary plus benefits) per agent. That's between $900 million and $2.
5 billion per year. Secondly, since illegal immigrants can petition the courts for relief prior to deportation, it would be necessary to significantly expand the court system to expedite the deportation process. Remember, those illegal immigrants facing deportation must be housed and fed at taxpayer expense.
As there aren't facilities available for detaining, say, 10,000 illegal immigrants at a time, they will need to be built and staffed. And since we are talking about a population spanning infants to criminals, there would need to be detention facilities of varying degrees of security and support - especially medical support - all paid for by you and I. The price for a couple of thousand judges, lawyers, baliffs, etc.
for the courts...
plus new court houses? A hundred million? What about the cost of prisons, detention facilities and camps to house thousands?
The cost of the guards, staff and medical personnel? Hundreds of millions more? When was the last time you heard or read Michelle Malkin discuss the actual cost of the policy she advocates?
How about never. Now you know why. Add to that the nightly images of women and children behind wire fences and you've suddenly you've got a whole lot of people reassessing their support for "zero amnesty".
Go back and look at the "debate" between Malkin and Geraldo Rivera on the issue...
What is striking about it (beyond the sheer imbecility, that is) is how quickly Malkin begins equivocating once the issue boils down to detaining and deporting women and children. She tries to fob it off by suggesting we concentrate on "the bad ones", but in practical terms, ICE agents will never be empowered with the ability to ignore enforcing immigration law at their own discretion. To suggest it can be done is silly.
But what isn't silly is the fact that Malkin immediately understood that the policy she advocates carries very real - and very negative - political consequences. How many politicians are likely to overlook that detail? Bottom line?
Under the best case scenario, the Malkin Solution requires the federal government to pony up - at a bare minimum - at least $1 billion a year to capture, detain and deport our illegal immigrant populiation. A population that includes the very young, the very old and the infirm. It's Elian Gonzalez a hundred times a day - every day - for every year from now to who knows when.
Does the Republican Party, lead by Tom Tancredo and supported by the likes of Michelle Malkin, actually advocate $1 billion in new taxes? Or do they support adding a billion or so more to the federal deficit? Are they really willing to deal with the political heat that will be coming their way?
And what's the likelihood of enough Democrats defecting their own party to back the Malkin Solution? Given the fact that none of this happened in the first six years of the Bush Presidency, I think it fair to say there is no chance of a fully funded Malkin Solution at the present time. And this, of course, leaves us exactly where we've been for the past couple of decades.
.. Which is a nation with absolutely no ability to either control or manage illegal immigration.
The reason Michelle Malkin is a featherweight is that she has neither the brains, the maturity, nor the honesty to admit that her immigration construct - that of the choice is between a bad immigration bill and the nirvana of no amnesty/no illegals - doesn't exist in the real world of practical politics. The choice, which Malkin and boobs like Tancredo cannot or will not understand, is between a Republican or Democratic version of limited border security/limited amnesty on one hand and no border security/no enforcement on the other. That is reality, and railing against George W.
Bush, Trent Lott and Ted Kennedy isn't going to change it one bit. Had Malkin - and folks like Tom Tancredo - been really serious about the issue of illegal immigration, they'd have pushed a compromise bill more to their liking down the throats of George W. Bush and the Democrats during Bush's first term.
If you're serious about getting things done on terms most favorable to yourself, you push as hard as you can for as long as you can, and when you've got most of what you want, you take the deal and claim victory. They had their moment, and they blew it..
. Largely because neither was smart enough or mature enough to take stock of the situation and act accordingly. Go back and look at Ronald Reagan's legislative victories and what you see is a sort of pragmatic deal making, thoroughly grounded in political realities, that neither Malkin nor Tancredo can come to grips with.
And that's why they're fools, irrespective of the merits of their convictions. Michelle Malkin is a simple lass. Her world is black and white.
It is filled with very simple solutions to very complex problems, and is populated by folks who are either very good or very bad. Her's is not the sort of mind that spends much time thinking about what it takes to actually do things. It is no accident that she has spent a lifetime running her mouth.
.. As opposed to running a department, an agency or a company.
As a man blessed with limited intelligence but a rather practical bent, I've seen her sort many a time over the years as I went about trying to actually fix the problems I was faced with. The Malkins of the world can do little other than stir the pot; when the time comes to roll up sleeves and do the fixing, they've flitted off to Other Matters. And that, in the final analysis, is why I hold Malkin in contempt.
She stands not as the agent of positive change, but as the guardian over an unacceptable status quo. And she's the personification of a Republican Party that has moved from embracing innovation and experimentation in public policy to being little more than knee-jerk reactionary. It is worth noting that Michelle Malkin's great immigration "victory" is wholly negative: We have no solution to the problem at hand, we simply have the guarantee that it will be at hand for the foreseeable future.
July 03, 2007 in The Fox News Bimbo Brigade I got me an interesting email a few days ago from a member of the mouth-breathing wing of the Republican Party, boasting that the recent defeat of the Immigration Bill was largely the work of internet titan and Fox News Bimbo Brigade starlet Michelle Malkin.
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