Washington, D. C. (AP) – Shades of Michael Steele.  Two days after the Justice Department filed suit against Arizona for criminalizing illegal behavior, Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean is under fire over unscripted remarks he made last week at a University of Mexico symposium on immigration.

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The event was sponsored by the National Council of La Raza [The Race] and Reconquista, a loose affiliation of groups whose goal is to reclaim the southwestern United States for Mexico.

Surreptitiously filmed, Dean’s appearance was posted on YouTube Monday afternoon and pulled Tuesday morning, hours after President Obama ordered the FCC to put its boot on YouTube’s neck until it takes down all the anti-Alinksy videos currently posted and replaces them with fawning, misty reminiscences of the good old days of the class struggle.

A high-ranking administration source told ABC News that President Obama dissociates himself from Dean’s comments for the time being. “We sent him as an observer, not a participant.  The chairman should not have revealed private discussions he had with the president about how to make the border with Mexico more porous while appearing to secure it.”

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs weighed in at his briefing yesterday, calling Dean’s comments a Republican dirty trick designed to muddy the immigration waters.  “It’s fishy,” Gibbs said.  “Who really organized the conference?  Who invited Dean?  Who gave him the floor?  This smells, my friends.”

Transcript follows:

Early in the tape (2:40), an unidentified man asks Dean about rumors President Obama intends to build a wall between Mexico and the U. S. to satisfy his critics on the right.  Dean’s response:

DEAN: It’s more complicated than that.

Fact is, our economy’s in the toilet.  Debt’s going through the roof.   We go under, you folks get hurt, too.  Where’ll your excess population go—Honduras?  And you Reconquistas—you want to annex territory poorer than Sonora?

If you’ve been paying attention, you know China’s been propping us up for years.  Now they’ve threatened to stop buying our Treasuries unless we solve one of their nagging internal problems: rising Muslim unrest in Xinjiang province.

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They’ve proposed a quid pro quo: they’ll keep buying t-bills if we commit to the biggest shovel-ready project since the Panama Canal—the Great Wall of Mexico, built by 750,000 expatriated Chinese Uighur Muslims doing jobs no American would.  The president has accepted the offer.

[shoutout from participant]  I see no benefit to us from your arrangement with China, Señor.

DEAN: Think it through, amigo.  Our border fanatics—your enemies—will be silenced because we are finally building the wall they want.  With the influx of Chinese laborers, service industries in the southwest will boom, to the president’s credit.  Border security and jobs—these issues will begin to favor Democrats, your natural allies in Washington.  What helps them helps you.

[another shoutout] Empty words!  There will still be the Wall to keep us out and the gangs to terrorize us.

DEAN: We’ve got that covered.  Look, the narcotics trade is a plague on both our countries, impossible to eradicate.  Agreed?  So, if we can’t eliminate trafficking, the next best thing is to co-opt the traffickers.  How?  By offering them unfettered access to a huge new market: the wall builders . . .  on condition they leave the rest of us alone.  It’s a no-brainer for them.

As for your concerns about continued access to the U. S., we understand that Mexico needs a relief valve.  The president is committed to increasing his “undocumented Americans” constituency, the bloc he’s sure will give him a second term once he signs an amnesty bill.  Therefore, we’ll have experienced narcotunnelers and human smugglers work closely with Wall architects to design “easy through” passages to the north.

Let me add, the Obama administration is also determined to prevent non-Hispanics from entering Mexico illegally.  In particular, our border police will be on the lookout for desperate gringo cultivadors ranging south to entice campesinos north to pick crops for a pittance.  That era of exploitation is over.

I haven’t forgotten you Reconquistas.  The president intends to cede California to Mexico right after he’s reelected or the state goes bankrupt, whichever comes first.  And welcome to it.

[crowd] Viva Obama!  Viva Dean!

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DEAN: Muchas gracias. How do you scream YEEHAWWW in Spanish?