El Presidente Demagogue

Sometimes politicians make it so easy to point out their stupidity and hypocrisy that it feels like taking candy from a voter. That was the case with Mexican President Felipe Calderon the other day, who demonstrated that he’s a top notch demagogue who is happy to exploit any tragedy he can to help his sagging political career. Check this out.

A week or so ago, a tragedy occurred along the U.S./Mexico border. Anastacio Hernandez, who was in this country illegally, was being deported by federal Border Patrol agents. They were in California. According to the Border Patrol agents, when they removed Hernandez’s handcuffs at the border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana, he turned on them and wrestled both to the ground. One of the agents pulled out a stun gun and shocked Hernandez. Hernandez died a few hours later from that shock.

This is a tragedy on many levels. It’s a tragedy that Hernandez is dead. His death was entirely avoidable if he had simply crossed into Mexico rather than pointlessly fighting the Border Patrol. And it’s a tragedy that these two Border Patrol agents will have to live with having caused a death. Moreover, it's a tragedy that every leftist in Congress will now try to exploit this tragedy by calling for the heads of the two Border Patrol agents who do not appear to have done anything wrong. They will also call for hearings on stun guns, one of many causes on the left.

And chief among the exploiters, getting a solid head start, was Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who saw in this tragedy an opportunity to raise his Obama-like popularity ratings (41%). Calderon began by completely losing all sense of reality, by describing what happened as “torture” and stating that “a death with that degree of violence is truly a unacceptable violation.”

So a guy gets shot with a stun gun, as in “don’t taze me bro,” after he chooses to fight two cops who are letting him go, and he dies because of a freak set of circumstances, and that’s a “degree of violence” that is unacceptable? Really? That’s torture? Seriously?

How does that compare with corrupt Mexican police and drug gangs torture-killing thousands of citizens in Mexico over the past several years in ways that are too graphic to discuss? Where is the condemnation for the illegals who have been brutally killing Arizona ranchers? How about the bodies they’re pulling out of the abandoned mine in Mexico? The deputies found decapitated on Mexican highways? The murder of family members when you can’t get at the principal? The execution style killings of politicians? Any of this ring any bells Felipe? And let’s not forget that Hernandez started it.

Then Calderon tossed in Arizona’s immigration law, claiming that it “opens a Pandora’s box of the worst abuses in the history of humanity.” Really? Asking people for identification is the same as the Holocaust, or the genocides in Cambodia, Turkey, Rawanda, Sudan, and so on? It’s the same as Stalin’s mass murders and purges? It’s the same as the slave trade or Islamic terrorists blowing up school girls? It’s the same as what’s going on in Mexico right now? Me thinks someone needs some perspective.

Not to mention that this has nothing to do with Arizona’s law. This took place in California. And if you don’t know where Tijuana is, then buy a map señor. Secondly, these were federal agents enforcing federal law -- these weren’t Arizona cops. And let’s not forget that Mexico’s “laws” are much harsher when it comes to illegals, and that Mexico’s “justice” system actually is brutal and corrupt, not pretend brutal like you’re making out the US system to be.

Maybe exploiting and demagoguing a tragedy is good politics in Mexico, but it certainly sucks here. And maybe if you would do something to make Mexico something other than a cesspool of violence and despair, then this whole problem wouldn’t have come up in the first place? Maybe it's time to shut the heck up el Presidente?