Saturday Morning Idiocy

John Gibson's piece for foxnews.com has to be read to be believed. It is rife with silliness, but two general flaws stand out.

First, there is Gibson's utter lack of familiarity with the situation about which he is writing. He turns Mexico's recent spate of violence into an attack on Felipe Calderón's government, calling him "a little late out of the starting gate" and generally painting him as a man unwilling to take on the cartels. Gibson evidently didn't do a whole lot of research for his column. After his election in 2006, Calderón lost no time in deploying the army against the cartels, which was something of a taboo. He has 30,000 soldiers out battling the cartels, which may or may not be the best approach (I think it is for the time being), but it is certainly the most aggressive. The president's strategy has failed to reduce the violence in Mexico, but he has made an aggressive stance toward drug runners a pillar of his government. Gibson calls Calderón "flaccid", which betrays a total ignorance of the situation. (As well as of the English language, as he wrote it "flacid".) In short, regardless of what you think about his policies' effectiveness, criticizing Calderón for being weak on drug policy is like attacking Bush for being soft on Iraq.

Second, as the "flaccid" comment indicates, Gibson views the government's posture in war on drugs in Mexico as a test of manhood, complaining that "there isn't a blue pill to cure this impotency". This is so stupid as to warrant a check of the author's pulse. Drug traffickers succeed not because the government lacks huevos, but because it's a great business, and human ingenuity being what it is, they find their way around whatever obstacles the authorities throw at them. The United States has more than a couple of drug dealers as well, and no shortage of users. Is that because W, Bubba, HW, Reagan and the rest weren't real men? That's ridiculous. It's the prism a 12-year-old Bruckheimer fanatic would use to analyze the issue. Mexico's security is a complicated problem, but anyone writing about it really needs to avoid imposing simplicity on a situation about which they have little knowledge and even less understanding. Shame on him.

And lastly, take a quick look at this picture. Where does this clown get off attacking anyone's manhood?