{"id":1969,"date":"2006-05-15T10:07:17","date_gmt":"2006-05-15T14:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2006\/05\/stopgap_measure\/"},"modified":"2006-05-15T10:07:17","modified_gmt":"2006-05-15T14:07:17","slug":"stopgap_measure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2006\/05\/stopgap_measure\/","title":{"rendered":"Stopgap Measure"},"content":{"rendered":"

The latest episode from our we-don’t-pay-attention-to-polls White House<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Bush, in a speech to the nation Monday, will propose using the troops as a stopgap measure while the Border Patrol builds up its resources to more effectively secure the 2,000-mile line between the U.S. and Mexico, said two White House officials speaking on a condition of anonymity before the president is scheduled to speak at 8 p.m. EDT.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, almost five years after 9\/11, Bush has suddenly determined that we need to shore up the border. Never mind that, as this post<\/a> points out, Bush refused to fully fund an increase in border patrol agents scheduled for this year. We now have a “crisis” and our leader, in a prime-time TV event, is summoning the troops!
\nUPDATE: David Frum<\/a>:<\/p>\n

When the Bush administration fitfully attempts to enforce the immigration laws, it looks for measures that meet four criteria:
\nThey must be 1) spectacular; 2) expensive; 3) unsustainable; and 4) ineffective.
\nThe proposal to deploy the National Guard to the border meets all four!
\nThis plan won’t work, and it is not seriously meant to work. It’s supposed to look dramatic and buy the president some respite from negative polls – and then it is supposed to fail, strengthening the administration’s case for its truly preferred approach: amnesty + guestworkers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ouch. If this is an effort to shore up the 29%, it doesn’t appear to be working thus far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The latest episode from our we-don’t-pay-attention-to-polls White House: Bush, in a speech to the nation Monday, will propose using the troops as a stopgap measure while the Border Patrol builds up its resources to more effectively secure the 2,000-mile line between the U.S. and Mexico, said two White House officials speaking on a condition of […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1969","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}