The morning of 9/11/01 was a beautiful, dry Arizona morning. Back from a hard run, I flipped on the TV while doing some cool-down exercises only to see one of the planes crash into one of the towers. I knew right away what was going on.
I said to my wife, "Well, two good things will come of this: Gary Condit will be out of the news forever, and finally something will be done about our porous southern border."
I was right about the first, but could not have been more wrong about the second.
Do you remember Gary Condit, the California congressman? Succumbing as so many do to the fire down below Condit is alleged to have initiated an extramarital affair with the federal intern, Chandra Levy. When Levy was found murdered, Condit's link to Levy proved his undoing. The cable shows were awash with the Condit-Levy affair that summer of 2001. 9/11 put an end to the soap opera.
But it didn't do anything for the security of the southern border.
We got lucky in November, 2016. But then in 2020, the newly installed “leader of the free world” reversed Trump’s policies on border security and on much else.
But of course there is no need for concern since the Director of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, assures us that border is secure as he defines ‘secure.’ And it surely is if my name is George Orwell.