In eight days...

...Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean will be thrown into prison for doing their jobs.

Their real "crime?" They did something the Bush White House, amnesty advocates in Washington and those salivating at the prospect of a continuing flood of slave labor did not want them to do: they tried to stop an illegal alien who was smuggling drugs into the country.

PARENTHETICAL NOTE: I'm not saying Bush wants drug-smuggling to go unchecked. I'm not sure that's true of some in Congress, though....

A good synopsis of the Ramos/Compean story, broadcast last October by CNN's Lou Dobbs, can be seen here.

More than 200,000 Americans -- voting citizens -- have signed the Grassfire.org petitions asking Bush to pardon the two agents. Alberto Gonzales, Bush's pet Attorney General, has been asked to permit Compean and Ramos to remain free while their appeals are be heard, a right generally granted to people who have committed real crimes.

The result? nothing.

Bush is busy getting ready to try to convince us, once again, that he has a coherent idea of how he can get us out of the hideous mess he created in Irag. If he can manage that -- or at least hold off the Democrats' attacks -- he can get back to his grand plan for making this nation safe and bountiful for illegal aliens.

His opponents, led by the late Ted Kennedy, are waiting to corner him on the Iraq issue. After that, they can join him in dropping the last pretense of support for "border security."

Once again, I ask everyone who has not yet done so to sign the petition requesting that Ramos and Compean be pardoned.

It has become clear over the years that no one in Washington, no matter what their party affiliation or expressed desire to "serve the people," gives a damn what we think. They don't have to. We don't demand it.

It is time to start. Now.