1.1. In for a penny, in for 3/4 of a cent?

In the battle on the U.S.-Mexico border, the fight against illegal immigration often loses out to environmental laws that have blocked construction of parts of the “virtual fence” and that threaten to create places where agents can’t easily track illegal immigrants.

Documents obtained by Rep. Rob Bishop and shared with The Washington Times show National Park Service staffers have tried to stop the U.S. Border Patrol from placing some towers associated with the virtual fence, known as the Secure Border Initiative or SBInet, on wilderness lands in parks along the border.

In a remarkably candid letter to members of Congress, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said her department could have to delay pursuits of illegal immigrants while waiting for horses to be brought in so agents don’t trample protected lands, and warns that illegal immigrants will increasingly make use of remote, protected areas to avoid being caught.

The documents also show the Interior Department has charged the Homeland Security Department $10 million over the past two years as a “mitigation” penalty to pay for damage to public lands that agencies say has been caused by Border Patrol agents chasing illegal immigrants.

By all means, let’s protect our nation from illegal immigration and terrorism, but let’s do so only where it coincides with the precious concerns of the enviro-weenies.

Maybe the government can strike a deal with the coyotes to smuggle their illicit human cargos only in areas first approved by those whose environmental concerns take precedence over the lives and wellbeing of Americans, and make a similar arrangement with any terrorists or MS-13 gangs wishing to come into the U.S. to wreak their havoc.

Dipstix…

2. Our esteemed Ego-In-Chief:

PRESIDENT OBAMA was too busy to attend the celebrations in Germany this week marking the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago. But he did appear by video, delivering a few brief and bloodless remarks about how the wall was “a painful barrier between family and friends” that symbolized “a system that denied people the freedoms that should be the right of every human being.” He referred to “tyranny,” but never identified the tyrants — he never uttered the words “Soviet Union” or “communism,” for example. He said nothing about the men and women who died trying to cross the wall. Nor did he mention Harry Truman or Ronald Reagan — or even Mikhail Gorbachev.

He did, however, talk about Barack Obama.

Of course he did. He is, after all, his favorite subject.

It’s been a point of debate between Chuck and I whether he was this big a self worshiper before he ran for his present position (Chuck’s opinion) or his ego was hyper-inflated by the messiah building PR showered upon him by the mainstream media, and the adulation he received from millions of gullible mental zeros or overreactive Bush-haters who elected him (my opinion).

If I’m right, my flashback to Peter Finch as Howard Beale in Network (you know, “Go to the window…”) is almost spot-on.

“Few would have foreseen,” declared the president, “that a united Germany would be led by a woman from [the former East German state of] Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent. But human destiny is what human beings make of it.”

As presidential rhetoric goes, this was hardly a match for “Ich bin ein Berliner,” still less another “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” But as a specimen of presidential narcissism, it is hard to beat. Obama couldn’t be troubled to visit Berlin to commemorate a momentous milestone in the history of human liberty. But he was glad to explain to those who were there why reflections on that milestone should inspire appreciation for the self-made “destiny” of his own rise to power.

Was there ever a president as deeply enamored of himself as Barack Obama?

The first President Bush, taught from childhood to shun what his mother called “The Great I Am,” regularly instructed his speechwriters not to include too many “I’s” in his prepared remarks. Ronald Reagan maintained that there was no limit to what someone could achieve if he didn’t mind who got the credit. George Washington, one of the most accomplished men of his day, said with characteristic modesty on becoming president that he was “peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies.”

Obama, on the other hand, positively revels in The Great I Am.

“I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters,” he told campaign aides when he was running for the White House. “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that . . . I’m a better political director than my political director.”

At the start of his presidency, Obama seemed to content himself with the royal “we” — “We will build the roads and bridges . . . We will restore science to its rightful place . . . We will harness the sun and winds,” he declaimed at his inauguration.

But as the literary theorist Stanley Fish points out, “By the time of the address to the Congress on Feb. 24, the royal we [had] flowered into the naked ‘I’: ‘As soon as I took office, I asked this Congress.’ ‘I called for action.’ ‘I pushed for quick action.’ ‘I have told each of my cabinet.’ ‘I’ve appointed a proven and aggressive inspector general.’ ‘I refuse to let that happen.’ ‘I will not spend a single penny.’ ‘I reject the view that says our problems will simply take care of themselves.’ ‘I held a fiscal summit where I pledged to cut the deficit in half.’” In his speech on the federal takeover of GM, Obama likewise found it necessary to use the first-person singular pronoun 34 times. (”Congress” he mentioned just once.)

The writer of the linked column, Jeff Jacoby, knows his subject:

At this rate, it won’t be long before the president’s ego is so inflated that it will require a ZIP code of its own.