President Bush spoke with undiluted candor in his “State of the Union” address — indeed, so much so that it is fair to call it the “State of the Addiction” address. The president underscored that America is addicted to foreign sources of oil; and the president unabashedly affirmed that America is addicted to cheap, undocumented labor. For the former, he proposed broad new initiatives to reduce this country’s dependency on Middle East oil and to develop innovative, alternative energy sources; for the latter, however, he proposed more of the same, calling on Congress to pass a Guest Worker Program, while eschewing any reference to the 12 - 20 million illegal aliens already in our country, preferring instead the euphemistic “immigrant” designation. To the president’s way of thinking, oil dependency is an Achilles Heel, but cheap labor (cheap labor subsidized by American taxpayers) is an engine of the economy. In that view, of course, Mexico becomes the “Hopeful Society,” not America — hopeful that it can continue to export its poor, uneducated, and lawless to its northern neighbor, while receiving $16 - $18 billion annually in remittances from the hapless citizens both countries exploit.

Interesting, is it not, that the president emphasized the need for Americans to be better educated in math and the sciences to keep our country on the cutting edge of the global economy. Someone should remind him that scientists and mathematicians are not jumping our borders.

And interesting, is it not, that in an address largely devoted to international terrorism and the war in Iraq, the president refused to suggest there was any linkage between the war on terror and the need to secure our porous borders. Someone should show him that tunnel recently discovered between Tijuana and San Diego County and explain that, for all we know, it may have been the well-lighted, well-ventilated transportation conveyance for a nuclear device or canisters of nerve gas.

If eavesdropping on telephone calls between al Qaeda operatives and American citizens is essential to our nation’s national security, then so too may be eavesdropping on telephone calls between the corrupt Vicente Fox government and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

I’ll be succinct (how unlike me): I want the President of the United States to devote a significant portion of tonight’s speech to border security and a commitment to enforce immigration laws already on the books. I don’t want to hear about immigration reform or his fascination with a Guest Worker Program.

Fact is, the “State of the Union” is more than suspect when 12 - 20 million illegal aliens — lawbreakers one and all — reside here, plunder our treasury, healthcare and educational systems, tear the fabric of our culture, fill our jails and prisons, and send billions in remittances back to their homelands, for whom they refuse to revoke their allegiance.

This country has been suffering from a massive, long-standing invasion from the south that, arguably, pre-dated the Bush ‘43 presidency, but has gone on unchecked and unrestrained during his watch.

Samuel Alito’s confirmation today by the Senate’s Republican majority (and subsequent swearing in) is a victory in many respects: 1) the kind of nominee that a re-elected President Bush had committed to to his base during his campaign has been placed on the SCOTUS, and on the heels of John Roberts’ confirmation as Chief Justice and in the wake of an efficacious uprising of conservatives over the misguided Harriet Miers’ nomination; 2) the power center of an effete, Left-controlled political party — the Democratic Party — has been soundly defeated, both in national elections and on the floor of the Senate, and the idiocy of its liberal icons shown in bold relief before the nation; 3) the United States Constitution has been and will be reaffirmed, and the Democrats’ affinity for “legislation from the bench” debunked; 4) Senator John Kerry’s failed fillibuster attempt showed him for the egregious loser and thorough buffoon he is; 5) Leftie polibloggers proved themselves yet again as more squall line than powerful persuaders and the voices of reason; and, 6) it’s two down and, hopefully, at least one more strict constructionist nominee to go in the Bush ‘43 era!

My heartiest congratulations to Justice Alito and his family, and to President Bush and Senate Republicans (save for one miserable RINO, Lincoln Chafee)!

In keeping with my blogging friend Frank Laughter’s well-expressed sentiments vis-a-vis Google’s regrettably misguided politics (example), I have removed Google’s search engine link from my site’s sidebar and replaced it with Yahoo’s. It’s only a small gesture, but imagine if everyone followed Frank’s lead?

FOLLOW-UP: More on this issue.

FOLLOW-UP II: As Frank Laughter alluded to, Michelle Malkin weighs in on this issue.

FOLLOW-UP III: Patterico asks his readers for alternatives to Google and his readers’ comments are very interesting.

A 2,400 foot tunnel discovered running from a location near the Tijuana Airport, under the U.S.-Mexico border, and on to a warehouse in Otay Mesa, California, is no “Tom,” “Dick,” or “Harry” of “The Great Escape” fame. No, this threat to U.S national security is sophisticated beyond anything found to date in Mexico’s purposeful invasion of America.

Reuters reports:

The tunnel has cement walls and supporting planks, is no less than five feet (1.2 meter) tall and wide, and runs as far as 60 feet underground, Unzueta said. It has lighting and ventilation, and a pumping system to drain groundwater.

The U.S. entrance has a cement ramp with a washboard pattern for better footing. “We believe this tunnel is, in fact, the largest tunnel ever found on the Southwest border,” he said.

And here’s the money quote:

We know it’s been used for drug traffic but this really illustrates the dangers and risks of security to Americans,” said John Fernandez, special agent at the DEA in San Diego.

It will be interesting listening to President Bush’s upcoming “State of the Union” address to see if he points to the fact that our country is being invaded from the south by Mexican nationals and OTMs (”Other Than Mexicans”) and that our porous borders, the tunnel systems being uncovered, the numerous incursions by Mexico’s federal troops, and the presence of the notorious MS-13 gang in 33 states, constitute “a clear and present danger” to this country’s national security in an age of international terrorism.

I suspect we’ll not hear a word to that effect; but, we may well hear about the attributes of his Guest Worker Program.

The war in Iraq is not President Bush’s Achilles Heel. No, it is the persistent invasion from the south and the fact that 11 million to 20 million patent lawbreakers are afoot in our land and the president wants for them what Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) terms “Amnesty-Lite.”

Read about this tunnel and tell me that our nation is not vulnerable. Read about this tunnel and tell me you’re comfortable that the Department of Homeland Security is doing its job.

FOLLOW-UP: Here’s the Los Angeles Times story on the tunnel.

FOLLOW-UP II: here’s the San Diego Union-Tribune account.

You’d think Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s slip-sliding away from Republican principles of fiscal restraint and his political degeneration into a walking-talking facsimile of the big-spending democrat he replaced — Gray Davis — would be sufficient waywardness to draw the attention of right-of-center bloggers, but to date the silence has been deafening. I’ve commented to this effect previously. And back on January 8th I wrote:

Even the Left Coast’s pre-eminently Left-leaning, MSM-propaganda mill, The Los Angeles Times, which vehemently opposed Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ascendancy to the governorship of California in the 2003 recall election, now mocks him as a laughingstock for his all too transparent transmogrification this week into a spendthrift liberal democrat.

And rightfully so! Schwarzenegger is deserving of scorn. The man clearly has no core political beliefs. He is a political chameleon — a proponent of expediency over principal. Reagan he is not. It didn’t take long for California’s powerful special interests to bend The Terminator to their will and extinguish his short-lived commitment to Republican principles of fiscal restraint and limited government. Pumping iron can transform the body, but not the heart.

The powerful public employees unions and well-entrenched, Democrats-dominated state bureaucracy have had their way with The Arnold, turning him into the kind of “Girlie Man” he claims to disdain. And if this capricious, self-serving shift to the Left effects his election to a second term, than no doubt Governor Schwarzenegger may well become for the Democratic Party the Zell Miller equivalent of 2008 — i.e., the keynote speaker at the Democratic Party’s national convention.

Now comes this piece on Schwarzenegger by Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee and I feel vindicated. Walters writes:

The irony of Davis’ political undoing is being compounded three years later by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the bodybuilder-turned-actor to whom California voters turned on his promise of “action, action, action, action.” As he begins his third year in the governorship, Schwarzenegger is retreating from confronting the Capitol’s dysfunctional status quo and is, in a sense, channeling Davis.

Schwarzenegger’s annual appearance Tuesday before the Sacramento Press Club was vintage Davis, advocating only policies that he knows will find favor with the voters (infrastructure investment), sidestepping questions on controversial issues (the Iraq war, assisted suicide) and paying homage to the legislative leaders he was trying to kneecap last year.

Schwarzenegger, it would appear, has convinced himself that avoiding risk and telling voters about the highways and other goodies he wants to deliver to them will overcome his less-than-stellar popularity and gain him another stint in the Capitol this year. “It is all about the quality of life,” he told the Press Club as he pitched his plan to spend $222 billion on transportation, waterworks, schools and other public facilities over the next decade without raising taxes, while insisting, with a straight face, that “we won’t win votes with this proposal.”

And he comes to the key observation:

The governor clearly will bend almost any direction to please Democrats, but the more he caters to them, the more he alienates himself from Republicans, especially conservative Republicans, who are leery about massive spending of any kind and who are insisting that there should be reforms to streamline projects, the kinds of reforms that environmentalists and unions intensely oppose.

Conservatives are already complaining that Schwarzenegger is leaning too far to the left on spending. Some want to strip him of the Republican Party’s re-election endorsement at next month’s state convention, citing his appointment of long-time Democratic Party activist Susan Kennedy as his chief of staff.

So I continue to ask: why is the Republican governor of America’s most populated state getting a pass from conservative bloggers?

It’s not enough that the corrupt, Vicente Fox-led government of Mexico has published a guide, euphemistically entitled “The Guide for the Mexican Migrant,” to encourage Mexican nationals to emigrate illegally to America. Now the Mexican government’s National Human Rights Commission has joined in such complicity by publishing 70,000 maps to aid illegal border jumpers in entering Arizona safely and crossing its desolate desert regions.

The Los Angeles Times reports today (excerpts follow):

Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission will print and distribute at least 70,000 maps showing immigrants the safest routes to cross the border into Arizona, officials said Tuesday.

The project, which immediately drew fire from groups organized against illegal immigration, is aimed at reducing the number of people who die trying to cross 50 miles of Sonoran Desert to reach highways in southern Arizona, according to Humane Borders, the Tucson-based humanitarian group that created the maps.

The new maps will show spots where people have died — presumably discouraging some prospective migrants — as well as main roads, rescue beacons and the locations of water stations maintained by Humane Borders.

While such patriotic organizations as The Minuteman Project draw the ire of President Bush, misguided, open borders’ apologists such as Humane Borders aids and abetts the Mexican government in its purposeful invasion of the United States of America.

The Arizona Star reports (excerpts follow):

Four maps have been prepared, each one centering on a different migration corridor along the Arizona-Sonora border including Douglas, Nogales, Sasabe and Lukeville. The maps show the locations where deaths have occurred and also show where Humane Borders water stations have been set up and Border Patrol rescue beacons have been installed. The maps also indicate how far would-be illegal entrants can expect to walk in one to three days.

Mauricio Farah, one of the commission’s national inspectors, said about 70,000 maps will be distributed throughout Mexico starting in March.

But some critics say the map, much like a controversial comic-style guide that Mexico distributed last year, will serve only to push more migrants north.

Jim Nixon, who belongs to Tucson’s Arizonans for Immigration Control, said he had no doubt the map would encourage more border-crossers to make the trip.

“The map tells them where to go and where not to go,” he said. “Humane Borders is aiding and abetting, there’s no question in my mind.”

What’s at stake for Mexico? Why does it encourage massive illegal emigration to the United States? Simple. As the San Bernardino Sun reports:

Mexicans working in the United States are a huge source of revenue for Mexico, sending home more than $16 billion in remittances in 2004, Mexico’s second largest source of foreign currency after oil exports according to the country’s central bank.

FOLLOW-UP: I’ve written previously on the Humane Borders’ leader, Rev. Robin Hoover.

FOLLOW-UP II: Debbie Schlussel weighs in on Fox, Bush, and the idiocy of the Humane Borders’ folks who are co-conspiring with Mexico to facilitate the invasion of the United States by Mexican nationals.

IMPORTANT UPDATE (01//27/06): The Dan Stein Report advises that Mexico has decided not to distribute the maps! Now if the Humane Borders’ folks will migrate to Mexico and take their misguided humaneness with them.

The Houston Chronicle carries the following Associated Press (AP) story in today’s edition (excerpts follow):

Men dressed as Mexican Army soldiers, apparent drug suspects and Texas law enforcement officers faced off Monday on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande, an FBI spokeswoman said today.

Simmons said the FBI was not involved and referred requests for further details to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin similarly reports (excerpts follow):

Mexican soldiers and civilian smugglers had an armed standoff with nearly 30 U.S. law enforcement officials on the Rio Grande in Texas on Monday afternoon, according to Texas police and the FBI.

Mexican military Humvees were towing what appeared to be thousands of pounds of marijuana across the border into the United States, said Chief Deputy Mike Doyal, of the Hudspeth County Sheriff’s Department.

Mexican Army troops had several mounted machine guns on the ground more than 200 yards inside the U.S. border — near Neely’s Crossing, about 50 miles east of El Paso — when Border Patrol agents called for backup. Hudspeth County deputies and Texas Highway patrol officers arrived shortly afterward, Doyal said.

“It’s been so bred into everyone not to start an international incident with Mexico that it’s been going on for years,” Doyal said. “When you’re up against mounted machine guns, what can you do? Who wants to pull the trigger first? Certainly not us.”

An FBI spokeswoman confirmed the incident happened at 2:15 p.m. Pacific Time.

If, after reading these newspaper accounts, you still agree with President Bush and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that increased border security must be linked in comprehensive immigration reform legislation with a “Guest Workers Program,” then you, too, are insisting that the invasion from the south and armed incursions by the Mexican Army should be tolerated in the interest of so-called “cheap labor.”

This incident renews my call for the president to place troops on the border and to bolster the ranks of the U.S. Border Patrol. It’s high time the Bush administration hold the government of Mexico accountable for its actions!

FOLLOW-UP: No wonder only 25% of Americans in a recent Gallup poll approved of President Bush’s immigration policies! H/T: The Dan Stein Report.” Porous borders defies common sense, particularly in an age of international, Islamofascist terrorism.

FOLLOW-UP II: A reader of The Dan Stein Report left a “comment” at the site’s post regarding this armed incursion that I feel compelled to quote in part, because the outrage expressed is so on point and indicative of how I feel:

This story should hit Michael Chertoff and President Bush up side the head like a bag of hammers! How can they continue to turn a blind eye to these constant incursions by the Mexican military!

FOLLOW-UP III (01/25/06): The Dallas Morning News reports the following:

U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., a frequent critic of the administration’s border security efforts, called Tuesday for the federal government and the governments of southern border states to immediately deploy troops to the U.S.-Mexico border in light of what he termed “recent armed assistance Mexico’s military has given to drug smugglers.”

“Our border has literally turned into a war zone with foreign military personnel challenging our laws and our sovereignty,” Mr. Tancredo said.

“The only way to deal with this dangerous situation is to tap the resources of our own military,” Mr. Tancredo said. “I call on President Bush and the governors of border states to immediately deploy military personnel to defend our borders against the Mexican military.”

FOLLOW-UP IV (01/25/06): The El Paso Times reports the following:

The Mexican government will not allow its soldiers within 3.2 miles of the U.S.-Mexican border as a result of a standoff Monday near Sierra Blanca between Texas law enforcement officers and men dressed in military uniforms.

In response to Monday’s incident, the Mexican government has ordered its military to create an alert zone, extending 3.2 miles from the border, and not to allow soldiers in the alert zone unless they have authorization, Foncerrada Berumen said.

The Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on SCOTUS nominee Samuel Alito are again underway and California’s Senator Dianne Feinstein is presently rationalizing her Pavolvian “Nay” vote on Alito. She’s such a pompous ass. The Golden State, long since tarnished by the impact of liberal democrats and the Gray Davis era, deserves her, as it does Barbara Boxer.

But on one score she is absolutely right this morning: Samuel Alito is, as President Bush promised his faithful, a future SCOTUS justice in the strict constructionist, originalist, Scalia-Thomas bolt of cloth mold.

That’s why Bush is in the Oval Office and John Kerry is not, Ms. Feinstein.

What is the far Left cabal of the Democratic Party all about? Simple answer: upholding Roe v. Wade and the right to choose that (since 1973) 46 million unborn babies be aborted and cast in bio-waste receptacles. How does such an unconscionable genocide of the innocent constitute a woman’s “right to privacy” and her “reproductive rights?” Sick euphemisms, one and all.

PS: I have “grave” concerns about you and others of your political-moral ilk, Senator!

FOLLOW-UP: This “Daily Breeze” editorial says it all:

This week the Senate is expected to vote on the Supreme Court nomination of federal appeals Judge Samuel Alito, a former prosecutor and Justice Department attorney who won the American Bar Association’s highest recommendation. Months of digging by journalists, Democratic operatives and Senate investigators turned up near-uniform testimonials from people of all ages and backgrounds who swear by Alito’s brilliance, kind temperament, work ethic and devotion to the law. Attempts to smear Alito on extenuated guilt-by-association grounds and with wafer-thin conflict-of-interest allegations went nowhere.

Yet only a handful of the Senate’s 44 Democrats are expected to vote to confirm Alito. If this occurs, it will be unprecedented, outrageous and unfortunate.

FOLLOW-UP II: Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has done himself and the Republican Party proud during the Alito confirmation hearings. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to make a mad dash to the bathroom, as Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has begun bloviating and the nausea is already beginning to sweep over me.

FOLLOW-UP III: More obstructionist antics from the Dems.

FOLLOW-UP IV (@11:21am CST): Vote out of committee was 10-8 in favor of Alito.

FOLLOW-UP VI: Kudos to Polipundit for this post and the observations made.

FOLLOW-UP VII: Bravo, Don Surber! If there were a Howard Cosell Award in the blogosphere for “telling it like it is, ” you’d win for your post-Senate Judiciary Committee vote post on the Dems. What a sorry bunch they are. All those hateful questions, all of that boorish posturing, and a pre-ordained vote the predictable outcome. What crap!

ProLifeBlogs provides photographs of the mightly successful “March For Life” in Washington D.C.

While not in attendance yesterday, President Bush nonetheless addressed Pro-Life forces assembled in the nation’s capitol, and, in his stirring, from-the-heart remarks, underscored the principal reasons I voted for him in 2000 and again in 2004 — his commitment to the sanctity of life and his promise to place strict constructionists in the Scalia-Thomas mold on the SCOTUS.

I appreciate so very much your work toward building a culture of life– (applause) — a culture that will protect the most innocent among us and the voiceless. We are working to promote a culture of life, to promote compassion for women and their unborn babies. (Applause.) We know — we know that in a culture that does not protect the most dependent, the handicapped, the elderly, the unloved, or simply inconvenient become increasingly vulnerable.

The America of our dreams, where every child is welcomed in law — in life, and protected in law may still be some ways away, but even from the far side of the river, Nellie, we can see its glimmerings. (Applause.) We’re making progress in Washington. I’ve been working with members of the Congress to pass good, solid legislation that protects the vulnerable and promotes the culture of life. I signed into law a ban on partial birth abortion. (Applause.) Infants who are born despite an attempted abortion are now protected by law. (Applause.) So are nurses and doctors who refused to be any part of an abortion. (Applause.) And prosecutors can now charge those who harm or kill a pregnant woman with harming or killing her unborn child. (Applause.)

This is precisely why I still support this president. I have my issues with him — profound issues — on fiscal responsibility and border security, but his advocacy of the culture of life places him head and shoulders above the Pro-Choice, progressive-secularists that the Democratic Party would place in the Oval Office if Red State America would permit.

I applaud you, Mr. President. I deplore you, Mr. Kerry, and the liberal cabal that runs the Democratic Party and has no compunction about 46 million dead.

Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper prevailed in Canada’s national election, turning Prime Minister Paul Martin out of office and erasing the Liberals’ 12+ year hold on Ottawa, albeit with insufficient gains in the legislature to give Harper and the Conservative Party the kind of strong mandate needed to push our northern neighbor genuinely to the right in law, rather than simply in spirit. Harper is from Calgary, Alberta, which, if you’ve traveled in Canada, is the difference between day and night in political thinking from that found in the eastern provinces. And Harper, to his credit, is pro-life and opposed to gay marriage. That’s the good news …

The bad news: conservatives in Canada are not conservatives as we know them in America. Newspaper headlines today trumpeting a “Conservative” victory in Canada may wrongly suggest to many Americans that a Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan equivalent will be riding into Ottawa on horseback ready to restore political order to North America’s version of effete France. Well, don’t hold your breath. Canada is a country that anytime it tacks to the Right politically, finds the Left wanting out of the regatta altogether and threatening to secede.

Meanwhile, the Left-dominated MSM in America has wasted no time in turning its guns on Harper, terming his politics extremist, as Frank Laughter perceptively notes in pointing to an Associated Press piece on the election.

FOLLOW-UP: The inimitable Mark Steyn on Canada’s election results!

FOLLOW-UP II: Speaking of “inimitable,” don’t miss Bulldogpundit’s observations on our northern neighbor’s election results.

FOLLOW-UP III: Peter Brimelow reminds readers of his prescience and offers insights on what the Canada election results may usher in in time.

FOLLOW-UP IV: Human Events looks at what defines conservatism in Canada (H/T: Free Republic).

Canada today is more liberal (in the American sense) than the United States: with no laws regulating abortion, legal same-sex marriage, no death penalty, high income taxes and a federal sales tax, a financially-strapped military and a deep reverence for the United Nations.

But the problem with defining Canadian conservatism exclusively in the above terms is that it overlooks the fundamental issue plaguing Canada since the 1960s: the separation movement in the French-speaking province of Quebec.

The Washington Times reports what the VDARE folks (and others of us opposed to porous borders, illegal immigration, and amnesty for illegals) feared would happen:

The Republican National Committee voted yesterday to back President Bush’s call for a guest-worker program.

“The question is not ‘Is there an issue?’ — the question is ‘How you deal with it?’ and I think we have to deal with it in a comprehensive way — we don’t have to deal with it in a way that’s anti-immigrant,” said party Chairman Ken Mehlman, who said the resolution “reflected where the president was.”

The resolution, adopted by voice vote, was a major victory for Mr. Mehlman and headed off a divisive vote on an alternate resolution that would have put the party on record as opposing a guest-worker program, thus at odds with Mr. Bush.

Now it becomes highly likely that GOP Senators will take the teeth out of the “Border Protection, Antiterrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act” that passed in the House of Representatives last December.

This is one long-standing Republican who is now seriously considering re-registering as an “Independent.”

“National Security” and “Amnesty-Lite” (i.e., Guest Worker programs for the 11+ million illegal alien lawbreakers already in the country) are mutually exclusive. If the GOP under Bush’s leadership is intent on integrating the two, then I have a problem. They have already integrated so-called “national security” with “porous borders” for the first five years of Bush’s two-term presidency.

The borders must be secured first — secured before any forms of immigration reform are discussed in the halls of Congress.

If the Republican Party has, as Karl Rove asserts, a “post-9/11 worldview,” then why in Mr. Rove’s important speech at the RNC’s Winter Meeting this week — a speech setting the GOP’s tone and tactics for the upcoming 2006 elections — are the issues of porous borders and illegal immigration not prominently mentioned? Take the time as I did, and read the entire speech and tell me how many times these issues came up? Read the speech and you’ll know that the Bush administration’s position vis-a-vis border security is more of the same and that in the president’s mind there is no linkage between national security and border enforcement.

FOLLOW-UP: Do read Bryanna Bevins’ piece at the VDARE blog in reaction to the RNC vote. Her post includes a quote from Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), who promises a continuing fight.

Don’t you love these periodic pronouncements from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security to the effect that al Qaeda may have terrorist cells operating in the United States?

“We have to assume that there are persons out there that want to attack us,” said FBI director Robert Mueller.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said police chiefs have been told to review all the intelligence the federal government has given them in the last two years about al Qaeda tactics.

Chertoff told ABC News: “We’ve seen them attack in London, for example. We’ve seen them attack in Spain. We’ve seen them attack elsewhere, so I think we have to operate on the assumption that they do have some capability and they certainly have the intent.”

This, coming from an administration that has allowed millions of illegal aliens to jump this country’s borders and live and work here with impunity — lawbreakers without proper documentation in an era of international terrorism.

This, coming from an administration that has allowed one country in particular — Mexico — to encourage an invasion of our country and to make armed incursions into our land.

Chertoff insisted that the country has made security upgrades since the attacks of 9/11. He admitted though that a number of vulnerabilities remain.

Right, Mr. Chertoff — two such “vulnerabilities” being our porous contiguous border with Canada and our porous contiguous border with Mexico. And a third “vulnerability” being President Bush’s determination to install a “Guest Worker Program,” tantamount to blanket amnesty, that will permit anywhere from 11 million to 20 million illegal aliens (lawbreakers, one and all) to live and work in this country, and become citizens.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the GWOT is a contradiction in terms when 4 years and 5 months later, after the horrific “9/11″ Islamofascist terrorists’ attacks on the U.S. homeland, our country’s borders have not been secured. Fact is, the Bush administration put too few troops on the ground to secure Iraq’s borders (with deadly consequences for our troops and the Iraqi people) and has put no troops on the ground (and too few U.S. Border Patrol agents) to secure our contiguous border with Mexico to repell an invasion that continues largely unabated.

The president has patronized the American people in telling them time and again that America is fighting terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan so that it does not have to fight them here at home.

Meanwhile, our borders can be virtually breeched at will. We see that; we read about it; we know the Bush administration is sucking and blowing on national security. We’re not fools.

After all, if our lack of border security has led to a ruthless illegal immigrant gang — MS-13 – establishing itself in 33 states, than is it any leap in logic to presume that al Qaeda operatives are here and poised to hurt us, owing to unsecured borders?

FOLLOW-UP: If you challenge my comment to the effect that the Bush administration is talking out of both sides of its mouth vis-a-vis enhanced border security, then gain some clarity by reading this important post at The Dan Stein Report. OTMs (”Other Than Mexicans”) pose a serious threat to national security. According to Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), 48,000 OTMs from “countries of interest” were interdicted in 2005, which statistically suggests that around 240,000 entered our country undetected.

FOLLOW-UP II: Yet another post that reinforces what I’m talking about.

FOLLOW-UP III: Don’t miss this eye-opening post from Lone Wacko!

It appears that the Washington Post has answered the question posed by Ann Coulter in the title of one of her books — “How To Talk To A Liberal (If You Must).”

The answer: you don’t. Or, maybe better put: you can’t.

This story explains the genesis of WaPo’s epiphany!

The Washington Post shut down one of its blogs Thursday after the newspaper’s ombudsman raised the ire of readers by writing that lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave money to the Democrats as well as to Republicans.

In her Sunday column, ombudsman Deborah Howell wrote that Abramoff “had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties,” prompting a wave of nasty reader postings on post.blog.

There were so many personal attacks that the newspaper’s staff could not “keep the board clean, there was some pretty filthy stuff,” and so the Post shut down comments on the blog, or Web log, said Jim Brady, executive editor of washingtonpost.com.

“We’re not giving up on the concept of having a healthy public dialogue with our readers, but this experience shows that we need to think more carefully about how we do it,” Brady wrote on the newspaper’s Web site.

Progress? Maybe so. While the Washington Post rethinks how to have a “healthy public dialogue” with the left side of the blogosphere (good luck), maybe the Democratic Party could similarly do some soul-searching. Its liberal figureheads, after all, sound more like chatting Harry Bellefonte dolls these days than the party’s statesmen of old.

“Blogger” has been acting up this week and my frustration level is spiraling. For reasons I don’t understand and that the “Blogger” Help Desk has yet to resolve, I cannot append Technorati tags to my posts. I wrote to the Help Desk and received back one of those customary auto-replies that asks you to do the obvious while you cool your blogging heels waiting for some bona fide assistance. Earlier this week I experienced an HTML meltdown in my site’s template and had to reload my template with a copy I had saved at the end of last year. It certainly was my fault for not doing at least weekly copying of the template and dutifully saving those copies in Notepad; but, that said, I lost in the process a number of new links I had loaded into my sidebar since the first of the year. As if this were not enough, there have been frequent episodes this week of my blog not entirely loading banners and photos. This has occurred with Microsoft and with Mozilla Firefox. One minute, ACSOL loads just fine; another minute later, it does not.

I apologize to my regular readers and to those who have visited this week for the first time. I’m trying to get these issues resolved, but I’m afraid I’m hamstrung at the moment by a Help Desk that hasn’t gotten to me yet.

Imagine, just for a minute, if Samuel Alito were already on the United States Supreme Court and had written the SCOTUS decision upholding New Hampshire’s parental notification law, rather than retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Conner.

And imagine if Sandra Day O’Conner were instead President George Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court and the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearings were beginning next Monday.

I wonder what kinds of questions Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer would put to her in attempting to draw her out on her views of the New Hampshire statute and Alito’s majority opinion? Would she get hammered or get the kid’s gloves treatment?