Meet Your New President

Earlier in the week, during a campaign speaking appearance, Republican Presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani made the claim that, if elected President, he would build a wall across the US-Mexican border to cut down on illegal immigration from Mexico. And, while this is complete crazy talk, it might just be good for Giuliani.

Now, the border wall is not a new concept. In fact, it currently exists on parts of the border. In Nogales, AZ, a city which straddles the border, there is a massive concrete and steel wall (pictured at right) demarking the border. The crossing (which you can kinda see at the bottom of the hill) is patrolled by machinegun-toting guards. The top is covered in barbed wire. It's really pretty impressive. And it really wouldn't be that hard to connect all the existing walls into one continuous wall. It's something that hard-line immigration opponents have been toting for years.

What's shocking is that this current proposal is coming from the mouth of Rudy Giuliani. For a guy who's a Republican in name only, this is a pretty severe right-wing agenda. I mean, this is some Great Wall of China-type shit: a massive barrier to keep out invading hordes. (This project would be nowhere near as massive, as the US-Mexican border isn't quite half as long as the Great Wall.)

Quite honestly, this kinda sounds like an empty campaign promise. Giuliani has a lot of appeal to liberals, but his position of "terror" seems to be his only real foothold with conservatives. This border thing is just the type of crazy idea that really nutjob conservatives love. They would vote for Giuliani on that point alone.

But implementing something like this is extremely complicated, if not possibly immoral, and probably won't happen. However, sometimes you only need to say you'll do something to get people to believe you. (Remember what Bush said he'd do with Social Security? Yeah, that happened.)

With this wacky proclamation, I'd say Giuliani just jumped into the lead. Hopefully, Hilary Clinton will come up with a proposal to dig a new Gulf of Mexico/Pacific Ocean canal along the US-Mexico border. People would LOVE that!