If you want ignorant ranting about immigration and the Zina Linnik case, go watch Geraldo Rivera (thanks to readers for e-mailing me about it over the weekend and AP for clipping the vid). Utterly shameless. Geraldo teased his Saturday night segment on the case by claiming that Zina’s uncle, Anatoly Kalchik, would argue that Zina’s accused murderer should be called a “monster” instead of an “immigrant:”
GERALDO: The tragic story was twisted to aggravate the immigration debate… A little girl snatched and brutally murdered. Tonight her family speaks out on why his “immigrant” label should be replaced by “monster.”
The only thing twisted, though, was Geraldo’s big tease. Mr. Kalchick did not say what Geraldo said he would say. Geraldo didn’t even ask him about the immigration angle in the interview that aired.
Why not?
Perhaps because Mr. Kalchick would have told Geraldo what he told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (noted in my post yesterday):
…Zina’s uncle was angry that the suspect had not been deported after being convicted in a sex crime.
“We are all immigrants, but we come legally,” Kalchik said of his family. He added that the adults all cleared a criminal background check.
“If someone is a sex offender, or any kind of offender, he has no business being in America,” he said.
After failing to deliver on his breathless tease, Geraldo instead directed his vitriol at…me:
GERALDO: At this point, I have to point out how in my view, this awful case was distorted by anti-immigrant radicals like Michelle Malkin to make a cheap point. Michelle said that this tragedy was the result of our open borders policy, that allows creeps like this guy to sneak in. In fact, it has nothing to do with our borders, open or otherwise. This alleged perpetrator, as far as I know, is a US Army veteran, the stepson of another Army veteran, and he’s not being–he’s being held by INS, but that’s only pending other charges filed against him–charges like failing to register as a sex offender. You know, I wonder how long we’re going to have to wait for an apology on this one.
How about an apology for exploiting and misrepresenting Zina’s uncle? How about an apology for putting words in his mouth and the mouths of the Linnik family? How about an apology for erroneously claiming that Terapon Adhahn was a naturalized American citizen? How about an apology for misleading Fox News viewers about Adhahn’s immigration detention and withholding vital information about the systemic, long-standing failures of the government at all levels to deport criminal aliens?
This case and its ramifications have everything to do with open borders. Clue: “Open borders” is a metaphor for the willful, malign neglect of the entire immigration and entrance system–not just at the physical borders, but on the interior, at our consular offices abroad, on the immigration services side, throughout the investigations and enforcement bureaucracies, and in the detention and deportation offices.
But with clueless Geraldo, the immigration debate is always and only about one border–the southern border. It’s only about one kind of immigrant: Hispanic illegal aliens. And it’s all about one cheap set of talking points: All illegal aliens are hard-working angels, all ICE agents are jack-booted thugs, and everyone who believes in enforcing immigration laws is an “anti-immigrant radical.”
Remember: Geraldo’s so over the cliff, his answer to whether any criminal aliens should ever be deported was a blubbering digression about John Lennon.
Geraldo is worse than worthless. So I won’t waste another word. There’s too much work to do.
As they say on TV: Stay tuned.