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Posted on 10/16/2007 10:05:13 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch
The former Mexican president is touting his new memoirs in a cross-country trip
Former Mexican President Vicente Fox doesn't get many breaks these days.
He was slapped around on The O'Reilly Factor, had a new statue of his likeness yanked down by an angry mob in Veracruz, and along the way promoted his memoirs, which were published in English.
Fox, whose U.S. tour is taking him from New York to California and points in between, stopped off in Houston on Monday, where he signed autographs, posed for photographs and spoke of his plans to follow the leads of former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush by staying active and visible.
Top of the order for Fox is continuing his fight to get the U.S. Congress to approve temporary work permits for millions of Mexicans and a path to permanent residency for those who want to remain in the United States. Seeing such an agreement through was the chief foreign policy goal of his administration, which ended last December.
The challenge now, he said, is that racism and fear are shaping the debate.
"You get the xenophobes trying to influence the debate and take it to their side," he said in English during a meeting with the Houston Chronicle's editorial board. "Fear, very unfortunately, is guiding the debate and the decision-making process on immigration.
"Immigrants are not terrorists, but still many people are dealing with the issue through fear."
The immigration issue has come up repeatedly during his 15-day tour of the U.S. as he appeared on Fox Network's The O'Reilly Factor, CNN's Larry King Live, Comedy Central's The Daily Show and other programs.
With Bill O'Reilly, he said, he felt bushwhacked.
"O'Reilly doesn't give you the opportunity to express yourself, and Lou Dobbs, mucho menos (much less,)" he said.
Fox invited the conservative commentator to visit Mexico, where he offered to serve as Dobbs' personal tour guide.
Fox issued this challenge to Dobbs: "Come to Mexico and I'll take you around so that you will see what is going on in Mexico, so your debate will become more balanced and moderate."
Fox explained that Mexico "is an impressive, dynamic country with dynamic regions. People are working hard, and there are good people everywhere."
CNN, which airs Lou Dobbs Tonight, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Rob Allyn, the political consultant who co-wrote Fox's memoirs, Revolution of Hope, and is traveling with him, said Dobbs turned down an offer for the former president to appear on his show to debate immigration.
During an address to about 400 people gathered for a World Affairs Council of Houston luncheon at The Westin Oaks hotel, Fox repeatedly pounded the drum for the United States to overhaul its immigration laws and to stop building a so-called border wall.
"The real threat to this nation is isolating yourselves," he said, adding that from China to Germany, history shows walls have never worked.
Still, not everyone agrees with Fox these days.
In Veracruz on Saturday, about 100 people toppled a bronze statue of the former president. The crowd included several members of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which Fox defeated in 2000 to end more than 70 years of the party's rule.
In Houston Monday night, six demonstrators from U.S. Border Watch, a Spring-based group calling for the immediate removal of undocumented immigrants from the United States, stood in the rain outside the Wortham Theater Center, where Fox was to speak.
"Texas is Not A Mexican Colony," read a poster held up by the group's president, Curtis Collier. "No Border, No America."
Fox is also the object of criticism in Mexico.
"Of course he has a right to speak, that's not the issue," said Alfonso Zarate, a Mexico City political analyst. "The issue is that he should act with the responsibility of a former president. Mexicans expect their former presidents to act with more discretion."
During the PRI's reign, former presidents were expected to be seen rarely and heard from even less. Those who broke the rule were spanked, sometimes harshly.
Fox, though, seemed to handle the heat with ease.
"It's like Don Quixote to Sancho," he said in Houston. "The dogs are barking. We're moving ahead."
As is often the case when Fox travels, he was sought by Mexican immigrants who waved him down, posed for photos with the ex-president and asked him for autographs.
"A photo? Let's do it," Fox told five Mexican workers who wanted to pose with him.
Ana Sepulveda, a 51-year-old waitress who said she moved to Houston from Mexico 30 years ago, beamed as the workers snapped photos of Fox with their cellular phones. "He is the greatest," she said of Fox.
Chronicle reporters James Pinkerton in Houston and Dudley Althaus in Mexico City contributed to this report.
dane.schiller@chron.com
Mexicans are basically Aztecs and Mayans. There is no upside in dealing with such primativos. Mexico has oil and that is all they are useful for
Yes, Don Q was rather insanes, but he did have values for which his insanity fought. He also fell off his horse as I recall. Maybe Fox can do the same.
Seriously, the man is Harvard educated. He is a Tio Tomas, lip syncing the leftist, globalist, oligarchic crap students learn at the Ivy League schools. I have always thought, based on much evidence that the Ivy Leagues produce uneducated, but brainwashed elitests. GWB, BHWB, VF, HRC, to name a few, exempify that phenomenom.
Throw all the bastards out.
These Ivy League kids are hi-IQ but get turned into idiots by their “liberal educations”. I’m sure science is taught pretty much straight there but anything squishy and you will get a brainwashing neo-Marxist professor
Still, it remains unclear how richly the Mexican government will finance its plan. Many Mexican consulates have complained for years about being strapped for resources. In Dallas, the last two Mexican consuls have repeatedly announced plans to shutter their overcrowded offices off Stemmons Freeway for something more spacious.
The Foreign Ministry, in a prepared statement to The News, reiterated its commitment to consulates and said it would move the Dallas office into a larger space. It also said it has approved two more consulate offices, one in Boise, Idaho, and another in Anchorage, Alaska.
Still, other questions remain.
Primitivo Rodríguez, a Mexico City resident who attended the meeting, said he worries that it's too late for the Mexican government to try a new strategy, and many Mexicans may soon be returning to a country unable to provide good-paying jobs.
"There is a tsunami, not a thunderstorm, coming toward us, and I don't think the government has a plan," said Mr. Rodríguez, coordinator of the Coalition for the Political Rights of Mexicans Abroad, which has members in Chicago, Los Angeles and Houston. "What will Mexico do with so many unhappy, desperate people? Mexico is simply not prepared for what's coming next."
He's right. Mexico will have another revolution when we send back its trash. This is why those in power, there and here, are so hell bent on forcing us to give up our birthright. They don't seem to care that forcing their over population on us is just a band aid, and guarantees our inclusion in the violent conflict to come. We can't afford to let them win.
HAHAHAHAH!! Yeah that's why it's the most dangerous country in the western hemisphere...gimme a break...
“...Reagan was able to co-opt the term “Star Wars”...”
I think Reagan called it the Strategic Defense Initiative or SDI. Opponents like Ted Kennedy and the media derisively used the nickname “Star Wars” and it stuck.
Oh, that one’s a keeper!
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