When President Obama gave a speech on immigration reform this week and joked that Republicans wouldn’t be happy until there was a moat full of alligators at the Mexican border, right wingers across America (led by Fox News, as always) went into paroxysms of rage that Obama would make fun of them like this. How dare he suggest that Republicans would advocate such a ridiculous, extreme “solution?”

Then, they proceeded to advocate exactly what the President joked about, in total seriousness.

Here’s the letter sent to the President by Republican Rep. Joe Walsh, Vice Chairman of the Committtee on Homeland Security:

Mr. President, I’ve been told you are a serious man, a deep thinker, and that you’ve said you want to raise the level of the debate when it comes to immigration reform, so I can only assume you were serious when you suggested yesterday that, in order to secure out borders, the United States should build “…a moat with alligators.”

I actually think a moat might be a very good idea and I’m wondering how many alligators it would take to secure the entire border.

There’s more. At American Thinker (aka World Net Daily Lite), we have a typically deranged article making it quite clear that yes, there are more than a few Republicans who actually, seriously, think this is a good idea: Yes Mr. President, I Do Want Alligators in My Moat.

At LGF when we’ve had topics about immigration, I’ve been rather amazed at the extreme stuff right wingers will say about this topic; it’s not unusual for them to advocate Berlin-style walls and minefields. I once banned someone for completely losing it and ranting that we needed to install automatic motion-activated machine guns at the border.

The real irony of this story is that Obama was only joking … but he described exactly what many right wingers really think about immigration. That’s why they screamed so loudly about it; because it hit the target dead center.