Can you read the durned sign?

Sheriff Steve Bizzell in Johnson County, North Carolina, has been working hard to find and accelerate the deportation of illegal aliens. Is he just carrying out his sworn duty to uphold the law, or is something less noble at work?

Bizzell, in an interview for a newspaper report on immigration reform published last month, complained that ''Mexicans are trashy.''

He pointed to several children playing in one community as if they proved his next generalization about Latinos: ''All they do is work and make love.''

He said Latinos spread a culture of drunkenness and violence through his mostly rural county, a short drive from Raleigh.

Bizzell quickly apologized for his remarks to The News & Observer, but his contrition wasn't enough to ward off critics who call his comments evidence that the nation's increasingly popular efforts to enforce immigration statutes locally have nothing to do with law and order.

''The chief law enforcement officer is demonstrating his racism in public, and he's allowing his officers to do the same,'' said Tony Asion, the executive director of nonprofit advocacy group El Pueblo and a retired Delaware state trooper. ''It gives them the green light to treat Latinos any way.''

Is that what Sarah Palin is talking about when she salutes the "pro-American" parts of the country? Or do you think Bizzell is voting for Obama?

Here's another tidbit from the Times story:

''Look at that,'' he said, pointing at a storefront during his tour of the area with the newspaper reporter. ''You can't even read the durned sign. Everywhere you look, it's like little Mexico around here.''

Lovely. I bet those durned Mexicans are too trashy to even speak good American. You betcha.