Remedial Reading for Representatives

Lord knows I have enough reasons to look askance at many conservatives, but I used to be an English teacher and this just makes my skin crawl.

Alabama senator Jim Sessions jumped right into the debate on immigration last week with a quote from Robert Frost; "Good fences make good neighbors." His point? Obviously that if the United States builds a fence to keep illegal immigrants out, we'll get along much better with Mexico.

Well, that may or may not be true. The fence between Israel and the Palestinian territories on the West Bank certainly prevents a good many terrorist murders, but it doesn't make good neighbors of the Jews and the Arabs, and illegal Mexican immigrants to the United States don't blow up civilians. They just clean up after us.

Be that as it may, and delighted as I am whenever some right-wing yahoo makes a fool of himself in public, would someone please explain to this moron that you ought to read a piece of work before you quote it?

As quoted ad nauseum in countless better blogs, here is the full text of "Mending Wall," the poem Jim Sessions wrenched out of context and splashed, bleeding, all over the country.

Now that you've read it, you might write a letter to Senator Sessions and advise him to stick to "See Dick Run."

Benshlomo says, Hey Jim, something there is that doesn't love a wall!