San Diego Union-Tribune editor and CNN columnist Ruben Navarrette asserts that healthy local Mexican economies near the US border curb illegal immigration. Of course they do, Rube! Thank NAFTA for that.

Unfortunately, the scribe — who spends two paragraphs establishing his American bona fides (although he still calls himself Mexican-American), is as off-base as a Guatemalan without papers in Oaxaca (being an undocumented migrant in Mexico is a felony offense that gets one up to two years in prison).

Well, that “I’m blood and so I know” crap puts a chill on Ruben’s transnational flag-waving. On account of you can’t tell which flag he’s waving right now. Perhaps a Stars and Stripes but with red and green stripes. Maybe the Flag of Mexico with a bald eagle with the sustentation plumage downwards touching the tail whose feathers are arranged in the natural fan indicating migration routes north. I don’t know.

Or maybe I do:

Navarette doesn’t write like he’s sophisticated enough to understand how his US experience influenced his “Mexican-American” thought processes.

Hey, Rube, if you’re going to pay into Social Security, maybe you ought to identify yourself as American. Helps a lot when you turn 62. Although I understand it keeps doors open when you need them: affirmative action lawsuits, political positioning, speaking engagements at universities, and taking advantage of offered tokenist positions at regional newspapers.

Tokenista Junior argues that illegal immigration can be slowed by “rooting for the economies of Mexican border cities.” That’s hogwash. The overwhelming majority of illegals don’t come from the border states. They come from Central America and the Mexican interior where, in the case of the latter, Mexican politics, corruption, poor infrastructure, and damning agricultural policies drive able-bodied persons north. Why till the rich soil of Michoacan when working the rich soil of America pays so much better? Why are the rich fields of Michoacan fallow, anyway? That’s a problem Navarette hasn’t wrapped his Mexican-American noggin around, perhaps because he can’t or won’t travel much further south than TJ.

Navarrette compares illegal immigrants to drugs when he describes American labor requirements as an “addiction.” Equating drugs and labor is illogical, dumb and useless, because it won’t flow in the halls of Congress. Migration and drugs remain two separate (and unequal) topics. He ought to know better.

The SDUT editor really screws the pooch in his final paragraph: “It also shows why Americans will never be able to find the solution — because we’re the problem.” This is a dumb summation, possibly (but not bloody likely) wrapped up by some CNN editor. It is trite and disappointing. The Rube is without hope that “we” will every find “the” solution — whatever that is (he didn’t propose one) — to whatever the issue is (he muddled that by talking about his roots, illegal immigration, Congress, Governor Perry, border fences, en el otro lado, Bush, political honesty, high-speed rail lines and labor, in 500 words. I won’t even comment on his “people are hurting me” opening paragraph.

Who at CNN decides what bleeds and leads, anyway? College interns? Hispanics? They populate the best kitchens, you know. Perhaps their influence is far greater than Tipsy and George ever imagined.

4 Borders Pundit really didn’t know magical realism appeared in anything other than fiction. So I’m throwing away all those years of grad school in favor of CNN columns. There is far more magical realism here than in any college course.

So we are the problem, eh? Us in the US — you and me? Not the corruption in Mexico the Rube dared mention? Not failed Mexican economic policies? Not the all-but-implemented “safety valve” of migration Mexican politicians understand and plan for? Not the economic benefits of remittances? Not the automatic US citizenship granted to the children of illegal migrants? Not the fact that life in Mexico is shit for most Mexicans? Surely a “Mexican-American” would show some heart for the problems in the land of his ancestors, or at least more than a two words: corruption and desperation.

Rest assured Navarette, benefitting from his ancestors’ foresight, is not desperate.

Too bad he’s too busy asserting his Mexican-American identity, all the while sucking at the teat of an America that white immigrants largely produced, and he sucks as hard as his illegal cultural brethren do.

Good luck with the SDUT and CNN gigs, Rube. I hear they pay well.

Addendum: Heh. Note the caution from CNN on his latest piece, CNN being better at minding its bottom line than the Rube: The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer. I don’t agree: they are approved by some convention of CNN editors, and they are their responsibility as well.

An ominous new Axis of Evil is proven over at Beloved Leader.

RedState’s Rick Moran uncorks on the cowardly Left.

Excerpt:
The left is not blessed with any special insights into what evil George is trying to do to the Constitution. They are a small, pitiful minority of paranoid, self aggrandizing mountebanks who are courageous when it comes to calling people names but abject cowards when it comes to actually standing up for their beliefs and putting iron behind their words of change.

Read the whole thing. I’d add that, today, this attitude is prevalent among those under 30 years of age, on many issues. Is it the fallout from dumb TV shows, bad food, PC, inept (or absent, or self-absorbed) parents, and Web 2.0?

Famous local Hawai’ian god TikiPundit created the Gang of Generals (GoG) posters from his heiau in 2005. He has graciously assented to their being resurrected on this blog, since he is now retired. We graciously and humbly accept them, and post them below. 4 Borders Pundit will continue to update GoG as necessary.

4BP thinks it’s especially offensive that the Left now embraces GoG, after years (decades, John Kerry?) of sneering at them and everyone else in uniform for being “unable to get a job” in the civilian world. “If you’re stupid, you get stuck in Iraq.” How’s dropping out of the 2008 Presidency race feel, John? Got another dumb joke to get you out of the Senate, by any chance?

For a long time, the Left has sneered at military personnel for being undereducated. For being minorities exploited by white overlords. For being torturers and killers, or alternately, for being too operationally incompetent to hit the broad side of a Muslim terrorist’s hiney.

The faithless GoG — full of hate and self-loathing, I think — are a group of egotistical maniacs who think they know better. Largely, they didn’t know better when in uniform, and not one of them knows better now. They all know less. Some of them have been out of the game since Windows 3.1x was introduced. They’ve had not an intelligence update, not an operational planning briefing, not a salute, not a staff car, not a personal mess specialist, not a quick trip in a taxpayer-funded Lear Jet, not an aide-de-camp to straighten things (and their uniform) out, nothing.

Because generals and admirals are always motivated about something, GoG exists. The very individuals who cheerfully led their troops through poor quality-of-life, inept planning, lack of care or concern for their subordinates’ well-being or their families, the officers who drove thousands out of the service in frustration, all the while climbing the ladder on lip-service compliments to their lessers given only at award and change-of-command ceremonies — these are the self-same persons who are now decrying the military state of affairs in Iraq (but never Afghanistan, note).

There are GoGs in the making right now in the field grade ranks, be assured. More on that later.

The cynicism of GoG is stupefying. The hypocrisy is remarkable. The money to be made GoGing is attractive.

GoG will do anything necessary to obtain and maintain an audience. Since they can’t order a formation or “all-hands” anymore, they have prostituted themselves out to Mainstream Media. And that dog has lapped them up like sweet milk and given them an audience they never dreamed of before.

Everyone’s got an agenda in this case: GoG and MSM use and abuse each other, like willing Soapland hostesses and clients.

Here are the GoG Motivational Posters. As new GoGs emerge from underneath the rock of their retirements, they’ll be included. 4BP is paying special attention to their media awareness, as this is the best indicator of where they think they might find new appointments in a Democrat Administration in 2009.

Click for larger version:

Fencing the Border: The way CBS titles it, you’d think the border fence was just getting started.