When the president announced that he was sending the U.S. military to help secure our southern border, he received bipartisan praise from members of Congress. The Washington Post reported that the move was seen as “smart politics.” The year was 2011, and the president was Barack Obama. The National Guard troops Obama sent to the border as part of “Operation Phalanx” helped apprehend nearly 18,000 illegal immigrants and seized 56,000 pounds of illegal drugs.
He was not the only president to deploy troops to the southern border. In 2006, President George W. Bush launched “Operation Jump Start,” in which U.S. National Guard troops assisted in 176,000 immigrant apprehensions, as well as the seizure of almost $900 million illegal drugs. Before that, in 1994, President Bill Clinton launched “Operation Gatekeeper,” deploying military personnel to help regain “control” of the San Diego-Tijuana border. Before that, in 1989, President George H.W. Bush established Joint Task Force Six, deploying the U.S. military to the southwest border region.
But now, when President Trump announces that he is doing what four of his Republican and Democratic predecessors did — sending troops to help secure the southern border — the liberal outrage machines crank into action, as 108 House Democrats sent a letter to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis declaring “this effort is nothing short of a militarization of the southern border to score political points and stoke misleading fears among Americans regarding immigrants.”
Funny, they didn’t say that about Obama, Clinton or either Bush.
Hypocrisy
Trump’s critics say pointing out this history is simply “whataboutism.” Sorry, if there was not so much rank hypocrisy among those castigating Trump, there would be no need to say “what about?”
