You told everybody listening to your weekly radio address that you fulfilled your pledge to deploy 6,000 National Guard members to support the Border Patrol and re-asserted your call for "comprehensive immigration reform," meaning a guest-worker program and amnesty for millions of illegal aliens.

Mr. President, 'cause you're sittin' in Crawford, 'cause you're a former governor of Texas and 'cause I was born in Texas myself, let's talk Texas here in hopes we can better communicate. When you said this weekend your administration met a key objective to better secure our nation's borders, well, that was just brag, not fact. Whoever suggested you say such a thing is dumber than a box of hammers. And as they also say in Texas, you oughta cut 'em loose.

When you talk about the National Guard delivering results at our border and brag about our Border Patrol agents seizing 17,000 pounds of illicit drugs and 2,500 illegal aliens along our southern border since June 15, well doggone it, it's just about obvious those fancy advisers of yours forgot to tell you that's actually well below last fiscal year's pace, when the Border Patrol caught more than 1 million illegal aliens and seized more than 1.3 million pounds of illicit drugs. Did I mention you oughta cut those fancy advisers loose?

Mr. President, I don't know if anybody told you, but only 250 more Border Patrol agents have been freed up by all those National Guardsmen. If you're curious, that works out to just about one agent for every 10 miles of border with Mexico. You don't think your compadre Vicente Fox is exactly jumpy as spit on a skillet over that deployment, do you?

By golly, Mr. President, I need to remind you that you told the nation on May 15 that you were sending the National Guard to the border. We simply couldn't find 'em, and we sure went lookin'. Now the National Guard tells us they're not actually on the border but somewhere in the Southwest, and a whole bunch of 'em are in training, not exactly workin' just yet.

And that fella running the so-called Homeland Security Department...he talks about ending the Border Patrol's catch-and-release program for illegal aliens and then catches and releases them, and then talks about someday achieving "operational control" of the border instead of talkin' about securing it. That makes a lot of people think he's about as yellow as mustard without the bite.

Now what with the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, Israel battling Hezbollah, Iran and its nuclear program, North Korea and its nuclear program and its missiles, our record trade and budget deficits, a slowing economy and accelerating energy prices, you're probably feelin' right now 'bout like a gnat in a hailstorm. That's understandable.

But as Texans like us say, when you find yourself in a hole, first thing to do is quit diggin'. You got more than enough critics right now, and sure, every dog has its fleas. But you sure don't want folks to start pullin' for the fleas.

I don't mean any disrespect, Mr. President, and I do know you're the leader of the free world, but if you would, please look 'round and see just who's followin'.