“There Was A Reason For That Fence”

The New York Times has finally stumbled upon G.K. Chesterton’s parable of the fence—that before tearing down a barrier, one should first understand why it was erected. By dismantling the border protections put in place during the Trump years without even a cursory inquiry into their purpose, Democrats excused their abolition by calling it “xenophobic” to have borders.

The Times’ belated realization would be comical if its consequences were not so grave.

It is striking—if not outright disgraceful—to watch the Times suddenly acknowledge that Joe Biden bears responsibility for the border crisis that has defined his presidency. From his first day in office until early 2024, the administration pursued an open-border regime in everything but name. The results were not mysterious. They were obvious, linear, and repeatedly predicted. Yet only now, with a mid-term election looming and public frustration impossible to obscure, does the Times find the courage to chastise the very administration it loyally insulated for years.

One suspects the surprise will deepen when they realize that releasing hardened criminals—some with rap sheets longer than a CVS receipt—into American neighborhoods is not, in fact, a popular policy. That allowing illegal aliens with dozens of convictions to remain free until one of them stabs a commuter or sets an innocent stranger ablaze is not an enlightened criminal-justice reform. These are the sorts of ideas that can flourish only in newsrooms, faculty lounges, and progressive policy circles—environments blissfully insulated from the consequences they inflict on ordinary citizens.

What makes the Times’ newfound indignation so galling is its timing. It is five years too late. And its retrospective handwringing—“We tried to warn him”—rings hollow when “him” was a president who was non compos mentis for much of that time. Everyone in Washington understood what was happening. The press understood it. Democratic officials understood it. Rather than tell the truth or protect the country, they treated Biden’s decline as a political opportunity. They used a diminished president as a delivery mechanism for ideological projects no fully cognizant executive would have endorsed.

Now, with public anger surging and the costs undeniable, the same actors seek to transform Biden into a kind of political scapegoat. He is the chalice into which they pour their accumulated sins, hoping for expiation as the election season approaches. It is an old ritual: when the project collapses, blame the vessel.

The broader pattern is equally familiar. This is the standard process of America’s prestige media, with the Times as the most polished practitioner. Years after events unfold—and long after the damage is done—they finally “report” what the public witnessed in real time. Then comes the self-congratulation: See? We covered it. We’re not biased. But they never cover these matters when it counts: during the crisis itself, when policy could still be changed, when transparency might still prevent disaster.

When it matters, they remain silent—or worse, they obscure. During the height of the border surge, broadcast networks allocated mere seconds to it, treating the arrival of millions as a bureaucratic footnote. Newspapers buried the story on page A27, lodged between wire briefs where no ordinary reader would ever encounter it. And so public debate was skewed deliberately, with the crisis framed as a “right-wing narrative” rather than an unfolding national emergency.

Now the Times dons the mantle of truth-teller. But its late conversion does not absolve it. It merely reveals the deeper instinct of the institution: protect political allies until reality becomes too overwhelming to deny. And as usual, truth arrives only after the damage is irreversible—after communities are harmed, after public safety is compromised, after the country has already paid the price.

There was a reason for that fence.