I just saw this interview with
Senator Craig Thomas (R-Wyoming) on the John Gibson Show that was one of the damnedest things I've seen today.
Team Gibson & Thomas were trying to blame environmental advocacy groups for not bringing their collective wrath down upon illegal immigrants for littering during their crossing into the United States.
Unfortunately there is no transcript available yet (and it's not like I was Tivo-ing John Gibson [
shivers at the thought]) -- and if I find one later on I will duly update -- but the discussion was baffling.
Sen. Thomas clearly drew the short straw on this latest PR attempt to cross-promote a pair of GOP party positions. This dude was clearly not up: every time Gibson asked a trash-related question, Thomas came back with some generic immigration position, like citing how much marijuana was found during a recent round-up.
He gave no numbers, like an estimated gross tonnage of garbage left by immigrants during their crossings, but did provide a quaint anecdote about seeing an abandoned car during a recent (presumably fact-finding) trip to Arizona.
Nor was there any explanation why there is purportedly so much trash. I guess if viewers were informed that some people are willing to travel three or more days in the desert to get here and that they might want to pack a lunch to eat along the way the veiwing audience might start sympathizing with these law-breaking ne'er-do-wells.
I have to give them credit: this certainly is a new angle on the issue.
Thomas' solution -- why build a wall, of course! (Never mind the potential ecological or animal migratory impact such walls almost always cause.) Presumably this will not only keep Mexican immigrants out of the country, but it will also keep out Mexican garbage.
Two for the price of one!
Maybe I took too many literary theory classes in college, but the subtext of this discussion strikes me as a putrid way to mask a fundamentally racist equation:
Mexicans = Garbage
This is, of course, not the first time Gibson's inherent bigotry has been voluntarily brought to the surface (you may recall his "Make More Babies!" edict to white people everywhere during an editorial not too long ago), but bringing a Senator into the mix is absurd.
Both Thomas and Gibson should be called out on this one.