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October 06, 2006
 Joe
To Mexico: Demand Money Back From Allyn & Co PR Flacks!
By Joe
Guzzardi
“I
told you so.” How we at VDARE.COM love to
say those words! And, the
White House, U.S.
Congress, the
Mexican government and the
MSM graciously provide us with a treasure trove of
opportunities to gloat.
This time
I’m referring to a column I wrote nine months ago titled "
In
the Looming Public Relations Battle For Americans’ Hearts And
Minds, Mexico Will Lose".
You
recall the
flap in late 2005 when Mexico
hired the Texas-based
Allyn & Company public relations firm [email
them] to clarify the U.S. "misperception" of Mexico.
At the
time, Allyn charged $720,000 to undertake this completely
impossible and utterly thankless task.
Why look
a
gift horse in the mouth, I’m sure company President
Rob Allyn asked himself.
The
message
Mexico wanted to convey, as
translated by Allyn into public relations-speak, is that
more immigration, more guest workers and the proverbial
path to citizenship, would clear up our "misperceptions."
Since the
likelihood of Allyn’s success in selling his agenda to an
increasingly skeptical
American public hovered somewhere around zero, I suggested
to Allyn in my column that he insist on his money from Mexico
upfront.
If Allyn
didn’t get paid a few months ago, he may have trouble collecting
now since his efforts—whatever they may have been—have crashed
head-on into a stone wall.
What
Mexico and Allyn are trying to sell—its
multiple fantasies that the U.S. economy would
"collapse" without foreign workers, that aliens are
just doing
"jobs Americans won’t do," and that Mexicans are "just
looking for a
better life"—Americans are no longer buying.
The first
clue that things weren’t going so well for Allyn’s grand scheme
came in May when President George W. Bush took to the airwaves
to make a prime-time
television address pleading for
"comprehensive immigration reform."
Bush’s
speech was so poorly received by
Americans in general and
House Republicans in particular that in a parliamentary
government, a motion of "no confidence" would have been
called for.
Then
things got worse.
By July,
the nation’s mood had slipped further away from Mexico and
Allyn’s grasp.
In
mid-summer, Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert summarized
America’s illegal immigration crisis
this way:
"Every state is a
border state, and
every town is a border town. I’ve just returned from a
very informative trip to the
southern border, but everywhere I travel around this
country, illegal immigration is a top concern. It’s a top
concern among Americans because they want our southern and
northern borders to be secure.
"Border security is
an issue of
national security. It is not a secret that
terrorists and
drug runners -who want to do us harm- are trying to find
ways into our country and I believe we must first do everything
we can to stop them.
"Before we can look
at other immigration issues, we must
first secure our borders. I am disappointed that the
Democrats support a plan (S. 2611) for open borders and a plan
for amnesty. Their plan is just plain unacceptable."
A summer-long series of
nineteen hearings held by
8 House committees in twelve states followed. The goal, said
Hastert, "…is to get a stronger border security bill to the
President’s desk."
Come September, the House
passed H.R. 6061, the "Secure Fence Act of 2006." And on
September 29, the
Senate passed the legislation that would permit a
700-mile fence to be built along a portion of the
Mexico/U.S. border.
H.R. 6061 now goes to Bush’s
desk where he has promised to sign it.
In the
meantime, finally showing a hint of resolve, Bush rebuffed the
predictable protests of the Mexican government’s hierarchy
consisting of President
Vicente Fox, President-elect
Felipe Calderon and Foreign Secretary
Ernesto Derbez who absurdly charge that the fence will "damage
bilateral relationships"—one of their favorite nebulous
claims. [Mexico
To Lobby Bush Against Fence Bill, by E. Edward
Castillo, The Guardian, September 29, 2006]
In
summary, since Allyn & Company took Mexico’s money (under false
pretenses?) to improve its image, it has suffered the following
setbacks:
- In
the spring, President Bush was publicly humiliated when his
nationally-televised speech pushing hard for amnesty and
guest workers
laid an egg.
- Both
the Republican controlled House and Senate passed
legislation, H.R. 6061, authorizing a fence to be built
along the Mexico/U.S. border.
Does the
fine print on the Mexico/Allyn and Company contract contain a
non-performance clause?
Is it
possible to be less effective than Allyn & Company has been?
In the
private sector, a
failure of such magnitude would result in a serious ass
chewing…one that we at VDARE.COM would love to deliver.
Since
that isn’t possible, we’ll be content with having called it like
we see it…correctly, as usual.
Joe Guzzardi [
e-mail
him] is the Editor of VDARE.COM Letters to the Editor.
In addition, he is an English teacher at the Lodi Adult School and has
been writing
a weekly newspaper column since 1988. This column is exclusive
to
VDARE.COM. |
