The recent spate of corporate mergers has given us a new AT&T, and with it a new slogan: Your world. Delivered. What the telcom honchos forgot to mention is that your world is being delivered directly to the National Security Agency. Contrary to administration claims that its spy program is “targeted and focused” on “a limited number of people,” the communications of tens of millions of ordinary Americans, according to USA TODAY, are routinely intercepted and analyzed each day. While most Republicans are content to skirt the issue, the President remains less than oblique: “We’re not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans,” insisted a furtive Mr. Bush, “Our efforts are focused on links to Al-Qaeda and their known affiliates.” The only way, unfortunately, to square W’s account with the facts is to accept that Al-Qaeda has stationed millions of operatives here in America. So it might be a good idea to keep an eye on that dark-haired woman at the grocery store and to torture your son’s soccer coach with the funny last name.

When the domestic spying scandal first broke late last year, Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) called the government’s activities “inappropriate” and vowed to hold hearings. Which, in truth, he never did. One should be guarded, therefore, despite mounting evidence that the government’s endeavors are significantly wider and deeper than previously thought (or acknowledged), regarding Specter’s new threats to cut funding for illegal surveillance. Though the Senator declared: “What’s the use of passing another statute if the president won’t pay any attention to it? When you talk about withholding funds, there you’re talking about a real authority,” it’s probably safer to assume your calls and emails will continue to be monitored, unless, by good fortune, your phone lines belong to Qwest. Because the White House had not obtained warrants or, for that matter, followed “any legal process,” company CEO Joseph Nacchio denied the government’s request to tap his customers’ calls. Any reluctance to help the feds, according to a spokesman, was governed solely by privacy issues. No currency whatsoever was given to the 42 counts of insider trading Nacchio faces for dumping $100 million of company stock into the well of Qwest’s puffed up financial statements.

In attempting to elevate trusted cronies, Mr. Bush may well be orchestrating a vast cover up, but nominating Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden to run the CIA conjures the not so distant Harriet Miers debacle. With any hope at all, this folly signals that Karl Rove is otherwise occupied — indictments, etc., etc., because in addition to dragging the President’s approval rating below 30%, reports of warrantless spying have saddled Hayden with controversy and contention (he was NSA director when the domestic surveillance program was initiated and expanded). Hayden’s confirmation, therefore, will be little more than a proxy referendum on abolishing the Fourth Amendment. Despite the opinion expressed by Fox News’ Neil Cavuto: “Collecting our phone records… [is] a heck of a lot better than collecting our remains,” most citizens are appalled. In an effort to deflect the public’s ire, the President has rekindled the immigration issue, which, in his words, “stirs intense emotions.” But it also forces Mr. Bush to walk an impossibly thin line between appeasing wealthy Republicans whose businesses rely on cheap labor and redneck, Bible-Belt Republicans who wish to remain in the cultural vanguard. The latter, in fact, have their own color-coded alert system that ascends from White to Yellow, Red, Black, and, finally, Brown. Jews, of course, present the kind of problems that transcend pigmentation, but those, God willing, will get worked out during the Rapture.

Mr. Bush thus took to the airways and danced around any workable solution. He did reject criminalizing illegal aliens and those (nurses, clergy, teachers) who abet them, but stopped far short from offering amnesty. The precarious balancing act necessitated adopting Democrat proposals to increase the number of border agents and detention facilities. Mr. Bush also requested termination of a “catch and release program” which has for decades hampered the apprehension of Mexicans and trout in equal measure. (Point in case: Attorney Alberto Gonzales admitted to Wolf Blitzer he could offer NO PROOF his grandparents entered the U.S. legally) Still, Mr. Bush pledged not to discriminate against Gonzales… or Lopez, Sanchez or Cruz, for that matter, as long as they show “respect for the flag that we fly, and an ability to speak and write the English language.” Nonetheless, W. ordered 6,000 National Guardsman to take up positions on our lower boundary, despite the contumacious assertion that: “The United States is not going to militarize our southern border. Mexico is our neighbor and our friend.”

Guardsmen will not be engaged in “military” operations, reasoned the White House, because they will be unarmed and bereft of any mechanized equipment (think: beach chairs and binoculars). Didn’t we already try this in Iraq? Besides, trying to have it both ways (soldiers not acting as such) is kind of like Clinton smoking pot without inhaling. But coolness can accrue without illegality — getting high in Amsterdam, for example– and in the same vein, the border can be secured without troops. Donate bazookas to the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps or lay down a swath of all those perfectly good land mines we are spending millions to remove from Cambodia and Mozambique. How about a trench filled with man-eating Florida alligators?

It may be unfair, but the animus wears a sombrero. No one seems to be complaining about an influx of Indian software engineers or Taiwanese biochemists. Somehow, we adopted the notion that allowing in a bunch of Mexicans will denigrate our society. Well, maybe we should consider that it might be an improvement. To wit: A Wisconsin man, Danny (last name withheld), was taken into custody after trying to sell his 18-month-old daughter for $7,000. Grand Chute police Chief Ed Kopp noted the father “wanted to use the money for some home remodeling,” namely building a nursery. O. Henry aside, the transaction had the all the earmarks of the last century, with back alley meetings and demands for cash. Real horse-and-buggy stuff. Meanwhile, Mexican authorities arrested Ana Luisa Hidalgo Rivera and Alex Hernandez for trying to sell a baby over the Internet. The sophisticated Mexican duo had effortlessly identified a buyer in Dallas, arranged for a courier, obtained an international letter of credit and hedged the transaction (swapping dollars for pesos) on London’s foreign exchange market. Now, who would you rather have as your neighbor?