Without question, the State Department and the INS have been a chaotic mess since September 11. Politicians of both parties have done their level best to make things messier, with half-assed security measures made even more half-assed by politicians crushing anything that gives off the slightest whiff of "racial profiling." But we've got to "get tough" at the same time. So what does that mean? Apparently, it means major crackdowns on Visa applications from anyone who isn't from a nation known to harbor terrorist elements.

Case in point: Dean's World denizen Agonistes, whose Russian fiancee....

...has been waiting months for a Visa so she can come here and marry him. In the meantime, people from places like Saudi Arabia flit in and out of the U.S. almost as if they were citizens.

The conspiracy-minded will likely try to claim this all has to do with oil, or somesuch. Hey, Bush was an oil man, and his family's done business with the Sauds! And they're (gasp) Republicans! Why, what more does anyone need to know?

Perhaps the conspiracy-minded are right. But I suspect more more moderate heads will likely conclude that the bureaucratic branch of government (which is really quite separate from the executive, legislative, or judicial branches) is far more afraid of being called racist than it is of making security mistakes--since being called racist is more politically dangerous.

Anyway, Agonistes says he's been interviewed by the New York Times and the Washington Post on this, and his story certainly deserves wider coverage. It's embarassing that a Russian woman can't come here to marry her spouse, while people from Saudi Arabia come and go almost at will. He's also got useful links that give more detail on how silly the whole visa process has become. Check out his story, it's worth your time!