Memo From Mexico, By
Allan Wall
Barone Blunders (Again)
[VDARE.COM
note: President Fox has
just
cancelled his projected meeting with President Bush
to protest Americans’ interfering in their own
affairs by executing a convicted Mexican cop killer.]
By Allan Wall
“It is in our national interest to
help Fox and Mexico keep moving in the right direction.”
Thus Michael Barone ends his article “South of the
Border” in
U.S. News and World Report (01/08/2002).
[Pay archive] There is also
a link to the Barone article on a free site:
click here.
What exactly does this mean?
What
Barone means is that the United States must help
Presidente Vicente Fox and Mexico by–guess what?—giving
Fox what he wants on immigration.
Various other Fox Fawners have
argued the same. Taken collectively, this approach
presents Vicente Fox as “The Only Leader Who Can Save
Mexico” and “Our Man In Mexico”.
Where have you heard this kind of
reasoning before? “If Politician XYZ of Country XYZ does
not retain power, disaster will follow.” Answer: during
the
Cold War, when the State Department was obsessed
with the need to support mythical “moderates” against
“hard-liners” in various Communist politburos.
But it’s an error to apply it to
contemporary Mexico. Mexico has its own
political transition to attend to. It’s not the
responsibility of the U.S. to prop up the administration
of Vicente Fox. In the long run, it's
counter-productive.
In the interests of fairness and
full disclosure, let me say that I did root for Vicente
Fox in the 2000 Mexican election. I even wrote him a
letter of encouragement. Of course, being a
foreign resident of Mexico and not a citizen, I
could not vote for him. But my Mexican wife and her
family did. In the year 2000, his
candidacy was simply the best option.
But it’s quite another thing to say
that Fox is the only hope for Mexico and that if his
agenda fails, Mexico will go down the drain - and the
U.S. along with it.
Fox Fawners typically end their
tributes to San Vicente with an exhortation to the U.S.
to obey the great leader and allow even more Mexicans
into the U.S.
As an American living in Mexico, I
personally
disagree. As long as Fox has the U.S. as a safety
valve, he has no incentive for real reform. Do we want
to help Mexico? Then close the gates, and you will see
some real reform - whether Fox carries it out or not.
Barone points out some positive
features of the Fox presidency. But many of these
positive changes in Mexican society were occurring
before Fox became president. So far the principle
accomplishment of his administration has been that,
after
71 years, a
member of another party than the Institutional
Revolution Party (PRI) is president - i.e. Fox himself.
The
Fox Fawners, in their zeal to support Vicente Fox,
tend to ignore the Mexican Congress. When they do refer
to it, they portray the Mexican Congressional Opposition
as the bad guys. It’s funny, you’d think Americans would
applaud the development of a healthy system of checks
and balances–isn’t that an important part of
representative government? The way the Fox Fawners talk
you’d think they support Vicente as President-for-Life.
American media coverage of Vicente Fox generally
reads like it was penned by the Fox Administration. By
contrast, the
Mexican media is much cooler.
When you think about it, the Fox
Fawners’ approach to Mexican politics is nothing short
of arrogant. Why not let the Mexicans solve their own
problems while we solve ours–we certainly have
enough, don’t we?
Mr. Barone, however, eventually
does make it to his conclusion:
“The
United States has an interest in accelerating this
progress in a country with 100 million people and a
2,066-mile border with the United States. One way to
do that is to reach agreement on the immigration issues
Fox raised with George W. Bush on his state visit the
week before
September 11–regularization of the status of
Mexicans currently in the United States, a guest-worker
program, changes in visa procedures, and border security
questions.”
My translation:
