Inspector Robinson-Clouseau Rides to Arizona's Rescue

When otherwise intelligent writers like the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson lose their minds, one has the audacity to hope that Michele Obama and her Obesity Police will add Kool-Aid to the list of sugary drinks they’d like to ban. With his latest column about the Arizona border law, Inspector Robinson-Clouseau proves he needs only a trench-coat and a French accent to complete the portrait of the fumbling fact-tracker unable to see the clues right in front of his own alleged nose-for-news.

Like a good upstanding member of the New American Pravda, Robinson forthrightly begins by drawing his conclusion–the Arizona border law enforces “breathing while Latino”–then methodically reshaping the facts to fit his brilliant deduction. He devotes his first two paragraphs to inform us that the Arizona border is actually a safe place these days.

Apprehensions of would-be immigrants along the 2,000-mile border have dropped from a peak of 1.8 million in fiscal 2000 to 556,000 in fiscal 2009.

Assuming Clouseau’s facts are correct (no official Pravda source is cited), this is akin to your doctor telling you not to worry because your fever has dropped from 108 to 105.

If the Arizona border is indeed such a halcyon locale, perhaps the Inspector would consider taking the family down to, peut-etre, South Tucson for a little family getaway? No need to let a small matter like South Tucson’s assault and larceny rates being quadruple that of most cities in the U.S. worry him. The “rrrooms” are quite affordable, Inspector.

Next on Clouseau’s list is this brilliant conclusion, a Pink Panther gem of a statement if ever there was one:

It should be pointed out there wouldn’t be any drug-related violence along either side of the border if Americans would curb their insatiable demand for illegal drugs. It also bears noting that the Mexican drug cartels procure their assault weapons on the U.S. side of the border, where just about anyone with a pulse can buy a gun.

When you’re done laughing at it, examine Clouseau’s first sentence. “If Americans would curb their insatiable demand for illegal drugs?” Sacre bleu, monsieur! Are you kidding me? And perhaps Eliot Spitzer and Tiger Woods will curb their insatiable demand for sex, n’est-ce pas? So to make sure we’ve got it clear, now the illegal immigration and crime along the border problem is all the fault of the American drug user? Well, only partly. You see, the rest of the blame, Clouseau deduces, is the fault of the American gun manufacturers and vendors.

[youtube Gi64ffCT_eY nolink]

It seems for Clouseau and his Keystone Kolleagues, blame–like the truth–is a malleable substance which can be shifted to anyplace except where it really belongs.

Then, in a curious self-nullifying reversal, Clouseau admits that the border does need securing–wait, wasn’t it safe a few paragraphs ago?–but whines about the difficulty:

Still, it’s hard to argue, in principle, against making every effort to lock down the border. The problems come in figuring out how to translate principle into practice.

According to Robinson-Clouseau we have only two options, doing nothing or building “a 2,000-mile-long Berlin Wall, complete with watchtowers.”

Every card-carrying Pravda journalist, you see–even one of the inept Clouseau ilk–knows to invoke Nazi Germany whenever anything remotely reminiscent of protecting America’s boundaries is proposed. Nevertheless, Inspector Clouseau might want to revisit the containment issue with Charles Krauthammer who has expounded many times on the effectiveness of Israel’s very low-tech fences and security measures in the protection of its borders.

Robinson’s logic isn’t just tortured. It’s water-boarded. He cleverly presents a deceptive false choice: one must either leave the front door to the house unlocked or install an eight-foot thick bank-vault steel wall and build a panic room in the basement. No-inbetween.

The answer isn’t necessarily “a bigger wall,” or a Berlin Wall, it’s just a good wall. Raising the specter, Inspector, of an American Checkpoint Charlie is not only disingenuous, it’s offensive to the spirit of this nation. The U.S.A. has been the most welcoming country on earth in modern times and remains the dream mecca of freedom-seekers. To suggest it would or could become a quasher of freedom is either uninformed or just plain dishonest.

The Arizona law has nothing to do with “breathing while Latino” and a smart man like Robinson should be ashamed to perpetuate this canard when the law clearly delineates the limits of proper police enforcement, subject to stringent punitive lawsuits by anyone claiming to have been wrongly detained or searched. This is what separates America from East Berlin and Soviet Russia, where there was no redress to improper search and seizure. The American legal system and underlying sense of fairness acts as law enforcement’s de facto enforcer.

Inspector Clouseau might bear that in mind before he again cavalierly misrepresents the Arizona law as arresting people for “breathing while Latino.” Robinson can hunt the entire state of Arizona for imaginary Pink Panthers, but he had better have more to go on than just A Shot in the Dark.