Pablo Bachelet is one of the the Miami Herald/McClatchy's resident Latin America experts. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/167
Personally, I prefer the work of the Herald's Tyler Bridges. Maybe it's because of his conversational style, but his stories stay with me a lot longer than Bachelet's.
Like so many reporters and columnists at the Herald, he blows both hot and cold, often within the same story, often on consecutive days.
Sometimes, like the proverbial blind pig who finds an acorn, he stumbles upon something that comes perilously close to insight, or at least an original thought on Latin America, a specific country there or some aspect of U.S. foreign policy towards the area.
One that I haven't already read in Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs or don't recall anyone having already uttered at some foreign policy event at SAIS, Brookings, AEI or over at the Wilson Center for International Scholars, whose Latin America program is great,
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=topics.home&topic_id=1425
[This would've been before they moved into the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center on Constitution and Pennsylvania Avenues, NW, http://www.itcdc.com/ and were still in the Smithsonian Institution's iconic castle on the Mall. http://www.si.edu/visit/infocenter/sicastle.htm
(Trivia note: the huge parking lot shown in the film version of Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein's All the President's Men, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074119/ which featured some unintentionally humorous shots of Robert Redford as Bob Woodward freaking out about possibly being followed, is where the Reagan Bldg. is currently located.)
The Latin America dept. at Wilson rarely had something going on there which didn't attract a large crowd of well-informed and very vocal partisans with a dog in that particular fight, even decades-old fights that had been chewed on and dissected a million times before.
For instance, like Reagan's support for the Contras, Pinochet's middle-class opportunistic allies who looked the other way, why Argentina is always self-destructing, was Brazil too big and unmanageable for its own good, etc.
In that regard, of course, it reminded me a lot of Miami, where no old slight or fight is ever forgotten, merely placed in storage somewhere for a bit like Christmas ornaments, ready to come out again when the time is appropriate.
Unfortunately, for the most part, not unlike the Wilson Center's always topical and prescient Russian studies program -The Kennan Institute, run by Blair Ruble, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=topics.profile&person_id=4997&topic_id=1424 -which had guests predicting something like perestroika publicly before the C.I.A., it was often just elites -and authors at that!- speaking to other elites in the room.
That's why my usual pattern at these events after the panel was over was to always let the requisite back-patting Q&A go on for a bit before I'd rise, walk over to the mike and pepper the guests with questions they didn't usually get at such gatherings.
Like, but to cite the most obvious example, why they couldn't or wouldn't accept the fact that, however much they wished that it weren't so, Latin America was/is indeed held in low regard by so many Americans precisely because of demonstrable facts, and not simply of misperceptions, the card that they continually play, premised on the kind of silly arguments you rarely hear said with a straight face outside of South Florida to rationalize points lacking in logic or reason.
Sort of like the problem that the militant Islamic apologists at CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations pretend don't exist, by insisting that America is the problem, not the actions of individuals. Talk about bad salesmanship!
For proof of that , you only need to read Neil MacFarquar's story in today's New York Times titled, Abandon Stereotypes, Muslims in America Say http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/04/us/04muslims.html
(Somehow, despite the topic, MacFarquar conveniently forgets that one of the reasons that former Times reporter Judith Miller was considered radioactive was because she personally phoned a Chicago Muslim group to give them a warning, right before the FBI was going to serve a warrant on them to search for info that they were intentionally fooling well-meaning American Muslims, legitimately interested in zakat, by illegally funnelling millions to overseas terror support groups. Oh well!
In case you didn't know or have already forgotten, the U.S. attorney in Chicago investigating that Chicago case was Patrick Fitzgerald, the very same federal prosecutor who went after Miller in the Valerie Plame/Scooter Libby blackhole of a 'perjury trap,' which was un-necessary because Fitzgerald already knew that Colin Powell's assistant Richard L. Armitage was the source of Bob Novak's column.
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0611FB3C550C768CDDAE0894DF404482
For background on the the Dallas trial referred to in his article, see
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=technology&res=9F00E3D6133DF93AA25751C1A9649C8B63
The Washington Post's excellent index of their stories and essays on the Valerie Plame/Scooter Libby matter is at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/09/29/LI2005092901976.html
Reminder: Lest you forget, I agreed with President Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence.
http://southbeachhoosier.blogspot.com/2007/06/pardon-libby-or-at-least-read-his-book.html )
Still, regardless of the fireworks inside the room, after everyone retired to the lobby area, they always had a nice food and drink spread, which made the après-ski portion of the program always entertaining and amusing!
Nothing like watching well-known experts arguing 'till they're blue in the face while simultaneously holding their wine glasses in the air, just like some made-for-TV movie about the Georgetown diplomatic crowd at play. Sorry about the tangent!)
Unfortunately for Bachelet, this past Sunday was not one for the highlight reels, for either him personally or the folks behind the Herald's sad-sack Issues and Ideas section, long a national laughingstock of an OpEd section, especially when they were running nothing but puff pieces extolling the Carnival Center before it was finished, which, to my way of thinking, Chinese wall and all that, more appropriately belonged in the Tropical Life section, if not in a paid advertising section. (Didn't anyone learn from the LA Times' Staples scandal?)
But that's how the boosterish Herald is when they get behind something -ethical lines are crossed and ignored.
The section was more muddled thinking than I was expecting for a Labor Day weekend and certainly more than I personally can dissect here. Suffice to say that I'll concentrate here on the most glaring self-evident factual mistake.
As most of you know by now, I've been a vocal supporter of Bill Richardson since first meeting him and talking to him fairly frequently in the early 90's, when he was still a New Mexico congressman. He's really a great guy and has a perceptive mind that's well beyond most politicians and reporters in Washington.
As it happens, I was the person who first told him -at the Georgetown Park Mall no less- just who then-House candidate and now current U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont was, and what his whole background and "Independent" modus operandi was.
Sadly, I had to throw in the towel completely on Bill Richardson during the recent Iowa debate televised on ABC News, when, on top of all the issues he's consistently gotten on the wrong side of frommy point of view, he just couldn't have seemed less compelling or able to seize the moment by displaying the solid qualities I know he has.
Plus, well, I've support the war in Iraq since the beginning, so Richardson and company's silly emails to me over the past few months just got old and irritating.
He could've really shown some strength and played the Sister Souljah card by taking advantage of his unique background and said that the horrific slayings in Newark show that, whatever else you think, immigration advocates who are so zealous in their desires -and personal hatred of President Bush- that they willfully ignore the consequences of the ripple effect of having thousands and thousands of illegal alien criminals in our society, preying upon honest legal immigrants as much if not more than native-born Americans, do themselves no favor.
He could've done that, but he didn't.
Once he threw in his lot with the Daily Kos folks and the George Soros folks who were part of ACT -America Coming Together- which just paid $775K in fines to the Federal Election Commission, http://www.fec.gov/press/press2007/20070829act.shtml -a story that couldn't possibly have gotten less media coverage!- I knew it was time to throw him and his silly campaign overboard toute-de-suite!
(Also see the Times' honest editorial of September 1st, The Slow Pursuit of Political Wiseguys
where they blast ACT.
"Federal regulators are getting around late to one of the worst abuses in the last presidential election — the channeling of unregulated “soft money.”)
I'm hopeful that he'll learn something from the experience and perhaps in the future, wiser from the experience, not repeat the same mistakes and realize that you only have one chance to make a good first impression on the American people.
Arguing for defeat in Iraq and leaving a vacuum is not the way to do it.
Please note for the record that even in South Florida, the U.S. Constitution still attaches:
Constitution of the United States, Article II, Section 1, Clause 5:
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
As I've always known and Bill Richardson's own website makes crystal clear for even the dumbest of reporters or editors, http://www.richardsonforpresident.com/about_bill?id=0004
Bill "was born on November 15, 1947 in Pasadena, California to William Richardson and Maria Luisa Lopez-Collada. William Richardson was a banker who had been working in Mexico City for decades and he settled his family there shortly after Bill's birth."
Red highlighting below the result of an Indiana University education.
Poor Pablo, he and the Herald editors just don't know the law of the land.
Very McClatchy!
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http://www.miamiherald.com/campaign08/story/221823.html
Miami Herald
Sept. 2, 2007
Debate on Latin America shallow
BY PABLO BACHELET
It has become an article of faith for U.S. presidential hopefuls: If elected, they would give Latin America the attention it deserves.
Among the Republicans, Mitt Romney pledged to ''rebuild relationships of trust,'' while John McCain said Latin American nations are ``natural partners of the United States.''
Democrat Bill Richardson wants to resurrect the Kennedy-era Alliance for Progress, while rival Barack Obama promised a listening tour, starting with a visit to Bolivian President Evo Morales, who has been critical of President Bush.
Such words are a welcome development for a region that largely sees Bush as too distracted by the war in Iraq to reverse the drop in U.S.-Latin American relations.
''Latin Americans are looking with a certain degree of enthusiasm for a new administration in Washington,'' said Peter Hakim, who heads the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank. ``They're basically very unhappy with the Bush administration, and there is a degree of anticipation.''
But peel away the presidential hopefuls' lofty words, observers say, and there have been few substantive proposals on issues that matter the most to many Latin American governments: treatment of migrants and access to the U.S. market. Instead, there is plenty of fiery rhetoric condemning anti-U.S. leaders like Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro -- but few proposals that deviate substantially from what the Bush administration has done.
Hakim argued that Latin Americans should be ''cautious'' because presidential candidates are not pushing an agenda that suits them on trade and migration. Bush, he added, has been friendlier on issues such as comprehensive migration reform, free-trade pacts with Peru, Panama and Colombia, and cutting farm subsidies that anger Brazil.
With states with large Hispanic populations like Florida and California moving up their presidential primaries and foreign policy becoming a key debating point, Latin America is receiving more attention than usual at this point in the race.
McCain delivered a Latin America speech in West Palm Beach in June in which he pledged to re-create the defunct U.S. Information Agency to improve Washington's diplomacy outreach.
Romney has tried to show his interest in Latin America by putting out statements for the national days of Peru, Colombia, Cuba and Venezuela, speaking in favor of free trade and condemning Chávez and Castro. He has also announced high-profile campaign advisors, including Al Cardenas, a Miami Cuban American and former head of Florida's Republican Party, and Mexican American Roger Noriega, a former assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere.
On the Democratic side, former White House Chief of Staff Thomas ''Mack'' McLarty describes Sen. Hillary Clinton as an ''engaged internationalist'' who, as first lady, visited 17 Latin American countries.
Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee of the Foreign Relations Committee, speaks fluent Spanish and has met with 49 heads of state from Latin America and the Caribbean since 1987, according to his campaign.
Richardson, who was born in Mexico and speaks nearly fluent Spanish, is a special Organization of American States envoy to Latin America on migration issues. Besides reviving Kennedy's Alliance for Progress, he says he would move key government agencies to Miami because of its nearness to Latin America.
But while the candidates may know and talk about the issues that matter most to most Latin Americans, they also face pressures of domestic political considerations.
''It's very predictable that the three issues where Latin America and presidential politics intersect are going to be immigration, trade and Cuba-Venezuela,'' said Nelson Cunningham, a former special advisor on Latin America for the Clinton administration.
Immigration can be a toxic issue for Republicans because many conservative voters are angry over a perceived flood of undocumented migration from Latin America. ''Any time a Republican candidate talks about Latin America, they have to link to two things,'' Cunningham said. ``One is being tough on immigrants, and No. 2, being tough on Castro. That's become their one-two punch.''
Democrats, for their part, are reluctant to tackle free trade because their organized-labor partners oppose it. John Edwards has blasted pacts like the North American Free Trade Agreement for having ''devastated towns and communities across this country.'' Clinton and Obama say they favor free trade but opposed an agreement with Central America and the Dominican Republic in 2005, claiming it lacked sufficient provisions to protect workers and the environment.
Castro and Chávez are condemned by all candidates, but there are some cracks on how to deal with them.
Obama and Richardson favor allowing more family travel to Cuba. Obama caused a stir when he suggested that under ''certain conditions,'' he would meet with U.S. foes like Chávez or the Castro government. ''Sometimes it is more important to talk to your enemies than to your friends,'' he told Miami Herald columnist Andrés Oppenheimer. Then he wrote an opinion piece in The Miami Herald saying he would allow more family travel and remittances to Cuba and held a well-attended rally in Miami's Little Havana on Aug. 25.
Hillary Clinton criticized Obama's positions as ''naive,'' but Obama is hardly alone in that stance. Clinton herself has, in 2003 and 2005, voted in favor of bills that would have relaxed restrictions on travel to Cuba.
Dodd, in a statement to The Miami Herald, said, ``We need to open up channels of communication with all sectors of Cuban society, including with Cuban government authorities.''
Richardson said he is ''a believer in negotiations'' without preconditions. He wants to lift the U.S. embargo if Cuba frees political prisoners and agrees to ''negotiated democratic reforms'' -- without going into specifics.
But, tellingly, neither Clinton nor Republican front-runner Rudy Giuliani has pronounced speeches on Latin America, although their campaigns say they plan to do so soon. Observers say this is in part because the Hispanic community isn't pushing the issue, and Latin America-related questions rarely come up in debates.
Polls show that Hispanics who vote in the United States resent discrimination against Latinos but rank bread-and- butter issues like healthcare as top concerns.
http://www.southbeachhoosier.blogspot.com/