Much ACLU about Nothing

April 20, 2005

The flap erupting today over Sean Hannity’s visit to the Mexican border is proof that ACLU observers bird-dogging the Minutemen Project are pursuing an agenda. That agenda is to point the finger at conservative, law-abiding American patriots.

On Tuesday evening, with a worldwide audience watching on the Hannity & Colmes television program, radio and television personality Sean Hannity and Chris Simcox, a co-director of the Minutemen Project from Tombstone, walked up to a fence at the U.S.-Mexico border. When they came upon a ruptured area of fence, Hannity ducked underneath the fence and stood up on the other side, briefly, before returning.

While on the south side of the border fence, Hannity was well within the one-yard buffer zone existing between the two neighboring nations. He was not actually in Mexico, but in the United States.

ACLU observers at the border, who had been bored by the absence of any wrongdoing by the Minutemen throughout the month of April, reported Hannity to the Border Patrol. ACLU observers claimed that Hannity, a U.S. citizen, had broken the law and entered the U.S. illegally. Border Patrol agents refused to cite or arrest Hannity, who had done nothing illegal.

Today, the Arizona Democratic Caucus issued a news release claiming that Hannity had broken the law and that because of double standards, celebrities don’t get arrested for breaking the law. It has indeed been a slow year for the legislative Democrats, who have contributed little during the legislative session as their “Big Government Mama,” Governor Janet Napolitano, has vetoed one good bill after another.

Bisexual Democratic State Representative and ASU faculty member Kyrsten Sinema jumped on the Hannity non-issue as well. “The border patrol has a double standard,” Sinema complained to a KFYI radio news reporter today.

Neither the ACLU or Sinema have complained about the many illegal forays into the United States by illegal aliens or by Americans illegally going across the border to consort with foreigners in the invader camps on the Mexican side.

This trite, hollow pap is what has come to be the norm for the ACLU and the Democrats, neither of whom “have game.” The ACLU has little more to do than to make federal cases of small, obscure plaques at the Grand Canyon and conservatives ducking under fences at the border. For the people who contribute money to Arizona ACLU … you’re not getting anything back for your hard-earned dollar. If truthfully prepared, the 2005 Arizona ACLU annual report will indicate that volunteers at the border accomplished nothing besides smoking a lot of marijuana cigarettes and harassing honest American citizens.

For those voters who sent Sinema, a “progressive” Democrat, to the Arizona House of Representatives, you’re not getting any return on your investment either. Sinema, a freshman in the legislature, has made a name for herself by sponsoring anti-war rallies, for sponsoring a bill to give homosexual couples more legal rights and now for complaining about a conservative who merely approached the international border.

Elinor Eisenberg, director of Arizona ACLU, and Sinema are extremists whose agendas are greatly disconnected from mainstream Grand Canyon Staters.

KFYI Radio, which carries Hannity’s daily radio program, also accounted poorly for itself in the manufactured Hannity “story.” The Phoenix radio station practiced poor journalism in giving air time to a non-story and to the Democrats’ baseless claim that Hannity had violated the law. A KFYI newswoman proclaimed – incorrectly -- at the top of the hour throughout the day, “Hannity in hot water.” It’s hard to get into hot water unless one is actually arrested and charged with either a misdemeanor or a felony. As Hannity said this afternoon, “I did not break the law.”

This evening, on the Hannity & Colmes television program, Hannity displayed a copy of the Arizona Democrats' news release and he said: "This shows how petty, insignificant and superfluous Democrats are."

Arizona Democrats and ACLU officials will make real inroads by actually focusing on the border invasion and supporting those who legally and honestly resist it – not on their conservative opponents. Indeed, this episode is much ACLU about nothing.