Rick Perry & Sean Hannity at the Mexican/American Border

By Sarcasmo Jones

  States that border our neighbor to the South have an immigration problem.  Lately, this problem has been getting smaller.  I don’t mean to say that there are fewer immigrants entering the US without documents of American citizenship, I mean the immigrants themselves are smaller.  Americans are now aware of the fact that there are facilities, often overcrowded, on the border with Mexico that are detaining children fleeing the violence and poverty of life in Mexico.  Once this fact was made public, we immediately displayed our inability to unify by splitting to extremes on both sides of the argument.  Conservatives feel that these children should be terrorized and sent back to Mexico in tears.  Liberals want to give them all a big hug and find them a good American family to start their lives over with.  Texas Governor, Rick Perry, grabbed his assault rifle and his buddy Sean Hannity and raced to the border for a photo op of him and Hannity posing with guns.

     In all fairness, Perry asked President Obama to go down to the border with him, but apparently our President has better things to do than play weekend warrior with Rick Perry in the middle of a humanitarian crisis.  Posing with Rick Perry on the shore of the Rio Grande in a snappy suit while clutching a weapon of war in a threatening manner:  you missed the photo opportunity of a lifetime, Mr. President. Feeling spurned by the Commander in Chief’s disinclination to play Border Patrol with him, Governor Perry felt like he had to do something.  Perry was going to do something so incredibly effective that those little bitches in Washington would stand up and take notice.  He sent in the National Guard.

     On the surface, this decision sounds like real action from a tough Governor.  Sending in the National Guard sounds like a real display of military force, showcasing the serious threat faced by Texas and every other border state.  Naturally, I raced to the border to witness this historic military mobilization firsthand.  I was not disappointed.

     The Texas National Guard is not actually allowed to fire their weapons on unarmed people, or even detain the immigrants, thus rendering them completely ineffective in this Conservative wet dream.  The children were apparently privy to the soldiers’ dilemma, and had swarmed the National Guard en masse.  Some Guardsmen had two or three children clutching to their legs, being dragged along while pleading, in broken English, for the soldiers to take them home.  One soldier, unnerved by the restricted movement caused by the children clinging to him, started shouting “get em off me, for the love of God get them off!  I can’t move!”  Everywhere I looked children were asking soldiers to play with them, to buy them toys, or to take them to Six Flags.”  Soldiers were openly sobbing and others lay prone, hoping that the children would lose interest and wander away.

     I made my way to the Governor’s command tent: a large heavy canvas structure with a 4-ton air conditioning unit well guarded by some militia types.  I was informed that “the Governor doesn’t like to sweat.”  I asked to see the Governor but was told that he doesn’t like to be bothered while eating his taquitos and would likely take a nap after his meal.  I described the ineffectiveness of the National Guard to the guy guarding the door and he assured me that Governor Perry had a back up plan:  he was calling in the Texas Rangers.  This was not a good sign.  Texas Rangers have a fearsome reputation, steeped in history, of being able to keep the peace by any means necessary.

     The National Guard guys were clearing a runway out of the sun-baked earth for the Rangers to land.  This process was greatly slowed by the extra weight of giddy miniature immigrants that each soldier was involuntarily carrying.  The unmistakable sound of an approaching plane evoked an expression of reverence on the faces of the encumbered soldiers:  relief was within earshot.  The plane landed with a dramatic turn at the end of the runway and out stepped the Texas Rangers!  Actually, it was only two men, both former Rangers.  The first to step out was former pitcher, Nolan Ryan.  He immediately assessed the situation with his keen pitcher’s eye, looked squarely at me, and asked who my electricity provider was.  He took a whiff of the hot, Texas air, exclaimed that he smelled taquitos, and wandered over to Perry’s tent.  The second man was moving far more slowly.  Former catcher, Jim Sundberg, eased down the steps and said that he needed some ice for his knees.  Most of the Guardsmen were now weeping uncontrollably.

     I went back to the Governor’s tent, where the guy guarding the door, now clutching a pamphlet from Reliant Energy, informed me that the Governor was “talkin’ Texas” with Mr. Ryan.  He admitted that they couldn’t get all of the Rangers, since they had a game this afternoon up in Kansas City, but two Rangers were better than none.  I told him that they had ordered the wrong Texas Rangers.  He told me to shut my commie mouth before I get a Nolan Ryan fastball upside my head.  That seemed like a good place to end the conversation.

      Most of the soldiers had collapsed from the heat and were barely able to moan as the children poked them with sticks.  Sundberg, unable to locate any ice, had smushed a snow cone over each knee and was laying underneath the shade from a wing of the plane.  Word of my interrogation of the guard at the tent had spread to the rest of the militia-types, who informed me that Perry had sent for some cowboys and they probably wouldn’t take kindly to a bunch of stupid questions.  I gave Sundberg my last two Tylenol and started for the car.  It was too hot to get my ass kicked by Michael Irvin.  I waved adios to the children and wished them well.  I think that they will make it here, if we just give them a chance.