Damn You Burger King!

Despite the fact that one of its protagonists, Jorge Zermeño, was the mayor of Torreón two administrations ago, the controversy over the Burger King ad took a little while to get off the ground here. (The ad features a Texas cowboy and a Mexican half his size wearing a wrestling mask and draped in a serape with the design of the flag, which violates the strictures on the proper use of the bandera. Click here or here for more info.) There was just a short note about it two days ago in Excélsior, and, unless I'm mistaken, nothing appeared at all in El Universal until today. Sharpton-style, the government is stoking the embers of umbrage for political gain, but now that the scandal is in full bloom, I think it's fair to say that very few people care. The prohibition on using the flag is something that riles nobody up who isn't a member of the federal government, and the fact that the Mexican was so much shorter just doesn't get people's blood boiling, as far as I can tell. I just heard a summary on a radio show that is quite comfortable editorializing (Imagen Informativa), but the anchor (Carlos Mota) pointedly avoided expressing any objection. I quite literally had to explain what the offensive part was to a Mexican woman looking at the ad yesterday, at which point she expressed neither upset nor much interest. Around two thirds of the commenters in the El Universal forum on the issue say it's not offensive (including one, who calls himself Panchito Turbo, who wrote in English, "Get a Life!") The general reaction is, Don't the politicians have something, anything better to do?