The ballyhooed 'virtual fence' isn't working out as advertised, encountering lots of delays and snafus. The 'virtual fence' moniker was always a gimmick used by opponents of enforcement to show that they were tough, but reasonable, unlike the yahoos who wanted a real fence (along with other measures). The problem is not the specific components of the system -- remote-control cameras, radars, battle-management-style software integration. These, like real fencing, ground sensors, helicopters, and what have you, are just more tools available to the Border Patrol to use as they deem appropriate to the circumstances. No one should have expected this technology to be assembled easily or quickly; heck, it took 25 years to go from Reagan's Star Wars speech to shooting down the satellite last week. If there's a setback here, it's to the amnesty crowd -- the work involved in constructing a real immigration-enforcement infrastructure (at the border as well as in the interior) points to the unworkability of the McCain-Kennedy 'comprehensive' approach of granting amnesty now in return for promises of enforcement in the future. Even McCain's claim that he now supports a year or two of enforcement before proceeding to amnesty is clearly unworkable; it will take at least an entire term -- at least -- not only to implement the technological elements of better enforcement, but also to staff up in the proper areas and to overcome the furious legal assault that the ACLU and its cronies at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will wage to stymie enforcement. (Mickey Kaus, as usual, has funnier and more insightful comments than mine on the subject, here.)