the nominees are

the ranchers along the Rio Grande in Texas, facing the loss of cheap labor and the joys of eminent domain, who have just now worked out that their unswerving support of the toxic strain of Republicanism they've bequeathed unto the rest of us on all levels of the federal government might not be working out how they hoped

Trying to dampen a furor along the Rio Grande, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff insisted Monday that the federal government has not yet made a final decision on where to build 70 miles of border fencing and said the maps issued last week were preliminary.

Communities along the border are up in arms, with officials in Brownsville, McAllen and elsewhere weighing legal challenges to the fencing on environmental and other grounds. But Chertoff, in an interview with the Houston Chronicle, said his department has just begun the assessment phase.

"Some people, I think, are getting a little bit ahead of themselves," he said. "It may turn out for a variety of reasons that there will be some changes in the final laydown based on the environmental and engineering issues. Although we've mapped out certain areas, that simply means those are areas we are going to look at."

Already, the department has shelved plans for fencing in Laredo, deciding instead that eradication of the thick Carrizo cane that obstructs views of the river suffices for now.

But with government surveyors offering Rio Grande Valley property owners $3,000 to examine their land, some believe the fencing decisions are final.

"It seems to us that the location of fence has already been determined," said Keith Patridge, president of the McAllen Chamber of Commerce. "We hear what the secretary is saying, but what he's saying isn't necessarily matching with what we are seeing here."

Mr. Chertoff, who's perplexed that anyone would think his administration makes arbitrary plans in Washington without regard to what the situation on the ground is and how their actions will affect the people who have to live with the consequences of them

The plans revealed last week by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — mainly around Brownsville, Rio Grande City, Harlingen and McAllen — refer to 16-foot fences backed by a single-lane patrol road.

Chertoff said double-layered fencing, with a fence on each side of the patrol road, will not be used in all locations.

"The idea that there's a cookie cutter is completely wrong," he said. "So we're going to tailor the particular type of infrastructure to what the actual facts are and what the actual landscape is as opposed to some preconceived notion that everything has to look like a particular visual image."

and the Claude Rains Memorial Gambling Awareness Award goes to brown-folk-fearin' presidential candidate Rep. Duncan Hunter, who wrote the fence law and begs to differ about the cookie cutter thing

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who has long championed fencing as a deterrent for illegal immigration and drug smuggling, bristled at what he views as Chertoff's defiance of a 2006 law that mandates a double-layered fence along 700 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.

"Mr. Chertoff's idea that the law of the United States is voluntary and is some sort of a goal that he may comply with or may not comply with depending on his mood at the time is unique, to put it mildly," Hunter said.

Mr. Hunter, for those of you who are not familiar with his work outside the arena of racist nativism, was until recently the chair of the House Armed Services Committee, where folks spending government money not quite how our legislators intended and the use of the presidential signing statement to declare that the laws of the United States were voluntary and were some sort of a goal that the president may comply with or may not comply with depending on his mood at the time were not unheard of.

He's generally quite concerned about property rights (scroll to "Kelo property rights/eminent domain decision by the Supreme Court") when there are no meskins involved.

FWIW, the current iteration of the appropriations bill sides with the current iteration of Chertoff's position.

edit: Mr Charles, in comments, points out that beleaguered texans might should check out his preferred candidate for next year