Did you know that the president's actual plan for Nat'l Guard border-patrol duty is open-ended? Chimpy's successor will have to deal with it

Much as I hate to miss any of Rachel Maddow's Air America Radio show (which plays from 7 to 9am here in New York), for me the absolutely most indispensable segment is the "Underbelly" (in the 8:15 quarter-hour), where the Maddow team "poke[s] a sharp stick in the soft white underbelly of the right-wing scheme machine"—i.e., chronicles ways in which the Right manipulates and controls the national agenda. Today's underbelly technique was the "slow launch," wherein large-scale commitments are slipped through the grid of consciousness in the form of seemingly small-scale ones, and the next thing you know they're full-blown monstrosities.

Now, most listeners to the president's immigration-policy speech came away thinking that the 6,000-strong Guard force would be doing border duty for a "transitional" year, the time needed—Chimpy clearly seemed to be saying—to bring the new, improved Border Patrol up to strength. Ah, but there was a loophole: a reference to "initial" Guard deployment. As anyone who has watched the scandalous misuse of Guard units in Iraq knows, "initial" deployment is just what precedes the second deployment, and so on. Guard members don't get to actually leave until Sec'y Rummy says they can leave, and if they're looking for an actual date, I strongly recommend that they not hold their breath. And obviously a "first" deployment leaves entirely open the option of bringing in reinforcements.

Well, it appears that the other shoe dropped in the dead of night Friday, when conveniently—at the lowest point in the news cycle—a Pentagon memo was leaked. According to the report on the KXTV Sacramento website that's linked at maddowonline.com:

"A Pentagon memo sent to California National Guard leaders this week and obtained by The Associated Press indicates President Bush's planned deployment of troops along the U.S.-Mexico border will last at least two years with no timetable for concluding the operation."

The memo does indicate that a reduction from 6,000 to 3,000 troops is planned for the second year. Of course we still don't know what we're talking about in actual numbers to create an active force of 6,000 or 3,000 border-patrolling Guard members. And maybe the number will drop by half in Year Two; maybe it won't. More important, though, look at the timetable that's build into what's announce here. Since, according to the memo, deployment won't begin until June, Year Two takes us through June 2008, without even talk of planned withdrawal of the Guard from border duty. Which makes it seem pretty clear that the actual plan is to dump the problem in the lap of the poor schlub who follows the present First Schlub in the White House.