Thousands of Words, No Insights

It is inevitably disappointing when active public officials put their names to articles about policy, made worse because of the initial excitement of seeing a famous name in the byline. Such officials/authors inevitably hide their salient points behind a style that reads like advertising copy and a disingenuous defense of their position that virtually always fails to adequately address the opposing point of view.  

Ignoring this reality, I bought Poder's El Mundo en 2009 (published in tandem with the Economist) thanks to the article on US-Mexico relations by Arturo Sarukhan and an economic synopsis by Agustín Carstens. Of course, this was an easily preventable waste of 39 pesos. Sarukhan's article in one compound-complex sentence: The two nations face many intricate challenges that must be addressed, and they must be prepared to increase the level of cooperation to adequately do so. Stunning conclusions from the Mexican ambassador to the United States!

Carstens' conclusion in one complex sentence: Although Mexico faces a challenging economic climate, Felipe Calderón's many anti-crisis measures will allow the country to grow again as soon as the global economy recovers. Again, nothing particularly earth-shattering. 

The most memorable sentence in the magazine is, not surprisingly, from an independent analyst (Pedro Ángel Palou) who can make some claim to objectivity: 

While the country continues debating as a massacre unfolds or keeps bleeding as uncertainty reigns, however you want to see it, the Mexican partidocracy will laugh once more at the citizens, spend millions on campaigns, bite even the final reaches of the body like a power-hungry psychopathic Hannibal Lecter, and there won't be, I can assure you right now, even one important idea, not one coherent project upon which to vote.