How weak an interviewer is Piers Morgan of CNN? So weak that he can't and won't show how a celebrity airhead like John Leguizamo is wrong about immigration policy. In an appearance last night to promote the Ice Age: Continental Drift movie, Leguizamo also promoted a racialist immigration policy for the U.S., with Morgan saying nary a peep:

LEGUIZAMO: ...And this whole immigration thing is kind of -- it saddens me. You know, it angers me and saddens me because I feel like Latin people, we've always been here. We discovered this country. I jut feel like it should be like an open door. Latin people should be able to come in and go because this was our country and it still is.

MORGAN: Did you have high expectations that the first African- American president would do a lot when it came to immigration? And has he lived up to that promise?...

That's from CNN's rush transcript, and I didn't omit any material between those paragraphs.

In a better world, Morgan would have spent several minutes showing how what Leguizamo said is factually wrong and also bad policy:

1. There's a huge difference between "this country" and the land currently occupied by the political entity known as the U.S. Those who came here centuries ago found the land, they didn't find the country. Under the rules of the country, the U.S. has full control of its territory, and what Leguizamo is proposing runs counter to U.S. rules. Leguizamo is denying the sovereignty of the U.S.: the collective rights of the citizens of the U.S. to decide our policies regarding our territory.

2. The first paragraph above is (obvious to most grade schoolers) factually inaccurate. Christopher Columbus was from Italy (and might also have been Jewish [1]). Is he the "Latin" Leguizamo is referring to? Spain claimed parts of what is now the U.S. and then lost those territories. Columbus never visited what is now the U.S. mainland, just U.S. Caribbean territories. Ponce de Leon was the first Spaniard to reach what's now the U.S. mainland, in 1513. And, needless to say, Spain wasn't exactly a favorable influence on those who were here before them.

But - of course - they were hardly the first. People from Asia were here thousands of years before. Vikings established a settlement in what's now Canada around 1000 AD [2]. Kennewick Man was here around 9000 BC, and may have been Caucasian although others doubt that. There may have even been a Welsh settlement in Indiana in the 12th century [3]. Phoenicians might have even been to the Americas around 600 to 450 BC [4].

3. The question then becomes, how far would Leguizamo go back? Should anyone with Native American blood be allowed to freely live and move anywhere within North and South America? If so, then how much? Would one drop do? What about present-day Asians? They're related by blood to Native Americans, shouldn't they be included too? What about, say, Argentinian citizens of full or partial German descent? Or, by "our country", does Leguizamo mean Spaniards - white Europeans. Perhaps Leguizamo means "our country" as the Vikings, since "they were here first". Walking those like Leguizamo through what they're promoting is a great way to portray them as racialists: in that effort if in none other, the One Drop Rule is your friend. See also Barack Obama's Reconquista 101 and the entries on the Robert Erickson, reconquista, and liberal racism pages.

The goal here wasn't to show how an airhead comic is wrong, it's to point out just how weak CNN is. Morgan could have easily raised some of the points above, but either wasn't able or wasn't willing. Instead, he said nothing against Leguizamo's absurd statements (including others that followed).

Please write these CNN employees with your thoughts: @PiersMorgan @jonathanwald @jskurtz07 @SteveKrak @DespSeekSusan

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[1] huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/22/christopher-columbus-jewish_n_1534928.html

[2] pc.gc.ca/eng/lhn-nhs/nl/meadows/natcul/hist.aspx

In the past four to five thousand years, many people have lived at L’Anse aux Meadows; some stayed longer than others. Among these people was a small group of Norse sailors. The remains of their camp, discovered in 1960 by Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad, is the oldest known European settlement of the New World.

pc.gc.ca/eng/lhn-nhs/nl/meadows/natcul/bref_brief.aspx

ca. 6000 B.P.
Native peoples began using this location.

ca. 1000 A.D.
Norse Settlement

1500 to late 1800's
Area is visited by French migratory fishermen and possibly Basque whalers.

[3] articles.latimes.com/1989-09-03/news/mn-2117_1_12th-century

[4] sfslac.org/Library/PhoeniciansDiscoverAmerica.htm