If Pres Obama's trip was a baseball game, this is what the box score would say:
Visitors 4, Home team 0!
"No se puede" 4, "Si se puede" 0!
The "si se puede" fairy tale ran into some rough waters in Mexico City.
"Hope and change" must feel like a lot of "hype and hot air" to Mexicans!
Wonder what Pres Calderon is saying in private? He can't be very happy with a visitor who can't commit to anything.
By the way, check out our interview with Barnard Thompson on the radio box to the right, "Pres Obama in Mexico"!
"President Obama, vowing to confront drug cartels that are “sowing chaos in our communities,” called Thursday for the Senate to ratify a long-stalled treaty aimed at curbing illegal arms trafficking.
But Mr. Obama also suggested that he would not press lawmakers to revive an expired ban on assault weapons."
It gets better, specially when Pres BO commits to revive a treaty that most Dems won't support or remember:
"He also said he was pressing the Senate to ratify the long-stalled inter-American arms treaty, which the United States had a major hand in negotiating through the Organization of American States."
Now, here is more from The NY Times article:
"“I will not pretend that this is Mexico’s responsibility alone,” he said.
“The demand for these drugs inside the United States is keeping these cartels in business.”
Let's take the issues one at a time.
Assault weapons ban: Pres Obama won't fight the Congress. He is afraid of the NRA. He doesn't want southern and rural Dems to jump ship over the ban.
By the way, Pres BO is going to run into the same problem when he tries to push immigration reform.
Southern and rural Dems won't support it! Most of them voted for the fence and will not support anything that smells like amnesty.
What about the treaty?
It sounds like a plan except that the US Senate didn't ratify it before. What makes you think that they will ratify it now?
What about the Merida plan? Rich Lowry on The Merida Plan:
"Last year, the U.S. government passed the Merida Initiative, $1.4 billion worth of aid over three years to help Mexico in its fight against the cartels.
A worthy effort, although the aid has been tied up in procurement disputes in the U.S. and has barely begun trickling into Mexico."
And, what about those trucks?
Unfortunately for Mexico, and Pres Calderon, Speaker Pelosi plans to escalate the "trade war" against Mexico.
Brian Faughnan has a good post on this: Obama's Mexico Visit Spotlights Division among Democrats!
Let's hope that our Mexican friends didn't get too invested in the "si se puede" fairy tale.
P.S. By the way, did Pres BO walk on Lake Chapultepec? I may have missed that part of the trip!
