Have they "gone around the bend?" Will we soon spot former WaPo editorial writers muttering to themselves as they wander around suburban Virginia collecting bits of string from the sidewalk? Let's see if their latest editorial "Minutemen, Go Home" ( peekURL.com/zQJzGrb ) gives us a clue. Well, first of all, there's the title, and that tone is carried throughout their tantrum:

"undocumented day laborers"

"the Minuteman Project, a national organization bitterly opposed to illegal immigrants"

"Anti-immigrant crusaders"

"hassling undocumented day laborers"

"anti-immigration cranks such as the Minutemen"

"so what they are really up to is simple harassment" (Isn't that actionable? Maybe someone should find out.)

"Reveling in self-importance"

"In Vermont one such group got lost in the woods while hunting for undocumented infiltrators and had to ask for directions, the Boston Globe reported." (Now, see Washington Post repeats Boston Globe smear on Minuteman Project.)

What, you might ask, has got the WaPo so... "excited"? Should a major newspaper like the WaPo really take this tone and attempt to mislead their readers about what groups like the MMP want (example: "anti-immigrant" and "anti-immigration")? What happens when, for instance, their readers decide to take a look at what the MMP really wants, won't they realize that the WaPo tried to deceive them?

And, why isn't the WaPo able to understand things from a Big Picture standpoint? This editorial reads more like the rantings of a Chamber of Commerce hack who wants to keep the boom times rolling in those "boom-'burbs" outside Washington, or like the rantings of various race groups.

The WaPo should look outside its parochial boom-'burbs bubble and take a look at all of the side-effects of that "cheap" labor: corruption, corporate subsidies, lowered wages for American workers, massively increased social welfare costs, and on and on. All the things that California currently enjoys and that Virginia will enjoy in short order. In fact, both California and Virginia driver's licenses played a role in 9/11. There's so many issues involved in illegal immigration, but the WaPo doesn't seem capable of understanding them.

By failing to understand everything involved in this issue, and by misleading their readers about the MMP, the WaPo is running the risk of lowering their credibility even further.