The hits just keep coming when it comes to the thorny issue of illegal immigrants.  Now comes a report that illegals are contracting HIV when they come to the United States, and are spreading the disease when they return to Mexico.

The report, lovingly chronicled in the New York Times, suggests that an "expanding AIDS crisis among the migrants goes virtually unnoticed on both sides of the border", especially in Mexico where AIDS is still shrouded by stigma.

I say lovingly because the way Times writer Marc Lacey explains the reason many illegals are contracting the AIDS virus is stunning.  He writes, "For many migrants, being displaced from their homes and families is a lonely experience..."

Being displaced???  The New York Times is so desperate to paint illegal immigrants in a sympathetic light, they infer that illegals were kidnapped and forced at gunpoint to sneak across the border and take our jobs, health care and other social services.

And they're lonely?  So lonely people are more prone to break immigration laws, have unsafe and gratuitous sex, and contract HIV?

There are a whole lot of lonely people in the world who wouldn't dream of risking their lives by being promiscuous.

Yet another chapter of madness in the illegal immigration in America...

So the New York Times wants to know if "America is ready for a presidential candidate with a trophy wife."

Evidently, the summer months are proving to be so slow for the brilliant writers of the Times that they've really got to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

The article is referring, of course, to the age difference between Fred Thompson and his wife, Jeri.   The item is laughably transparent in its agenda:  portray the former Tennessee Senator as a doddering old man who has a young bimbo wife.   In fact, the first lines of the article refer to the "grandfatherly" Thompson.

Grandfatherly?

If any entity other than the New York Times posed such an ugly, sexist question about a Democratic candidate and his wife, I'm sure the Times would be howling in protest.  Sexism, bigotry, and intolerance are all reasonable tools in the arsenal of left-leaning voices -- provided the voices are trying to attack conservative Republicans.

One thing's for sure:  Fred Thompson's possible candidacy must be really forcing some lefties to shake in their Birkenstocks.  Why else would the Times stoop so low?

I'm absolutely shocked that Democrats like Bill Clinton are carping about President Bush's decision to commute the ridiculous prison sentence of "Scooter" Libby.

I can't believe there's actually gambling going on in Casablanca.

Actually, if a Democratic president pardoned or commuted the prison sentence of a trusted aide, we Republicans would be complaining as well.  Come to think of it, we did when President Clinton handed out pardons like candy canes on Christmas morning.

So let the left complain about Libby.  Big deal.  So they stomp their feet and hold their breath until they turn blue.  Big deal.  Sparing Mr. Libby a lengthy prison sentence was simply the right thing to do.

And I think Rep. Tom Tancredo is on the right track in publicly calling on the President to do the same thing for imprisoned border patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean.  As a matter of fact, Tancredo thinks these two brave men, rotting in jail after shooting a rotten drug dealer at the border, should be given a full pardon, not a commutation.

Well, let's not overreach here.  If the President isn't going to pardon Libby, he sure isn't going to pardon Ramos and Compean.  But at the very least, he should spare their families the anguish of their prison sentences and at least do the same thing for them that he did for Libby.

Come on, Mr. President.  Do the right thing for these two heroic Border Patrol agents, too!