Q&A with Vicente Fox
07/24/2010
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Deborah Solomon interviews Vicente Fox in the NYT and doesn't ask him the obvious questions like, "Aren't you ashamed at how many Mexicans left Mexico during your six years in office as Presidente?" and "Isn't there something weird about the President of Mexico being a foot taller than the average Mexican man? What's the deal with that, anyway?"

Mostly, there's just boilerplate about immigration:

I’m sure you’re aware that the U.S. Department of Justice has sued the state of Arizona to overturn its immigration law, which may well be invalidated by the time this interview appears.

That’s a good intent. President Obama is committed to Hispanics and migrants. That’s a promise I had from President Bush, and six years went by and nothing happened. I don’t want to be negative, but I’m seeing the same story repeating again. It’s been two years now, and nothing has happened in relation to migration.

But then, in her not terribly well-informed way, she stumbles into asking a tough one:
What do you think Mexicans have contributed to American culture?

Oh, starting with Mexican food! The jalape?±os and the tacos and the rest. I think they have contributed family values. And then we have our culture. When you were killing Indian Apaches there, we had built Mayan cities, the pyramids, Mexico City.

Great ... tacos.

Also, in the future, Mr. Fox, you'll make a better impression if you don't use the words "killing" and "pyramids" in the same sentence. You really don't want to go there.

At least Fox didn't mention how Mexico gave us our vibrant Human Signs.

I could come up with a better list than Fox's: the Spanish mission architecture style of places like Santa Barbara, the lariat and a lot of other cowboy stuff, Carlos Santana and Los Lobos, lowrider cars, the Dos Equis guy who says "Cheating is only in good taste when it involves death," and about 500 Nashville songs about vacationing in Mexico.

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