Borders for Dummies

Screwballs are part of every administration. Obama's administration has proven it is as inept as the Bush administration when choosing appointees for important jobs. After it becomes apparent that some appointees are nitwits, the process to off-load them begins. Luckily for Obama, some of his earliest declined to accept the offered jobs because they knew their tax problems would surface in the vetting process.

But downright nuttiness of the kind displayed by Janet Napolitano is often undetectable until it's too late. Her wackiness is now out, a mere three months after Obama took office. Not bad. She's the early bird, fortunately appearing early, before any doing any real damage.

Can someone please tell us how U. S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano got her job? She appears to be about as knowledgeable about border issues as a late-night radio call-in yahoo.

In an interview broadcast Monday on the CBC, Ms. Napolitano attempted to justify her call for stricter border security on the premise that "suspected or known terrorists" have entered the U. S. across the Canadian border, including the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack.

All the 9/11 terrorists, of course, entered the United States directly from overseas. The notion that some arrived via Canada is a myth that briefly popped up in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and was then quickly debunked.

Informed of her error, Ms. Napolitano blustered: "I can't talk to that. I can talk about the future. And here's the future. The future is we have borders."

Just what does that mean, exactly?

Just a few weeks ago, Ms. Napolitano equated Canada's border to Mexico's, suggesting they deserved the same treatment. Mexico is engulfed in a drug war that left more than 5,000 dead last year, and which is spawning a spillover kidnapping epidemic in Arizona. So many Mexicans enter the United States illegally that a multi-billion-dollar barrier has been built from Texas to California to keep them out.

In Canada, on the other hand, the main problem is congestion resulting from cross-border trade. Not quite the same thing, is it?