…let’s just concentrate on getting the Hispanic vote!

In a CNN debate in Austin, Texas, Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton agreed Thursday night that the Secure Border Fence Act of 2006, which directs the secretary of Homeland Security to construct 700 miles of double border fencing along specific sections of the U.S.-Mexico border, should not be enforced as written.

Stressing her desire to be deferential to the views of people who live along the border in Texas — which on March 4 will hold a primary that is widely viewed as a must-win event for the New York senator — Clinton said of a border fence, “there may be limited places where it would work. But let’s deploy more technology and personnel, instead of the physical barrier.”

“This is an area where Senator Clinton and I almost entirely agree,” said Obama. “I think that the key is to consult with local communities, whether it’s on the commercial interests or the environmental stakes of creating any kind of barrier.”

Both Clinton and Obama argued that the Bush administration was being too aggressive in pushing to build the border fence mandated by the 2006 law.

By “too aggressive”, they surely mean “verbally” aggressive. How much fence have they built in the last year and a half?

The agreement among the senators came in response to a question asked by CNN’s John King, one of the moderators of the debate.

On September 29, 2006, the Senate voted 80-19 for passage of H.R. 6061, the Secure Fence Act of 2006. (It passed the House on September 14, 2006, by a vote of 283-138). Clinton and Obama both voted for the act.

The law mandated that the secretary of Homeland Security build more than 700 miles of double fencing along specific segments of the U.S.-Mexico. Then House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King (R.-N.Y.), the principal sponsor of the law, explained its purpose in a floor speech on the day of the 2006 House vote. “It provides over 700 miles of two-layered reinforced fencing,” King said, according to the Congressional Record.

Above emphasis mine.

All 435 members of the House of Representatives and one third of U.S. senators faced reelection contests just one month after passage of the Secure Fence Act.

Yeah, sure… Voting for the bill was one thing, especially before an election, while actually allocating the funding to see it to fruition, after the election, is another thing entirely.

While Obama apparently has the black vote sewn up, he and Hillary are still vying for the Hispanic vote, yet neither wants to dumpsterize the vote of those favoring the enforcement of our immigration laws, so they offer straw-grasping alternatives neither would actually embrace, once elected, to the legislation they themselves voted for, in order to wear both hats.

That either specimen is actually a seriously considered candidate for leader of the free world is a telling example of how little today’s Democrats value even an iota of honesty in their political choices. But then, that became abundantly clear when they re-elected Bill Clinton.