Monday, November 30, 2009

Paredes Abuses Her Readers

I haven't read a whole lot of Beatriz Paredes' writing, but I was astounded by how much she focused on herself in this piece from Monday. By my count, the PRI boss is the subject of eleven of her first twelve sentences. The trend continues virtually unabated throughout, but I bored of counting. Beatriz: a column is not an 800-word memoir! An exemplary passage:
I initiated this article saying that I am a person, a woman, of definitions. Yes. I opted for valuing the state and the public.
That's just fantastic. Although on the plus side, the nearly psychopathic self-regard suggests that she writes her own columns, rather than pawning it off on a staffer. Kudos, I guess.

The topic of the column, aside from Paredes herself, is abortion. Paredes appears to be in favor of a woman's right to an abortion, despite the recent criminalization of abortion in PRI-run states. This incongruence has provoked some criticism in recent days, and this meandering, wholly unconvincing column (even funnier given that she sees herself as a "woman of definitions") is presumably Paredes's rebuttal. But although the PRI's position is incoherent and the party president is at odds with the prevailing view of the party, it seems unlikely to provoke a crisis of ideological identity within the PRI. Everyone from Paredes on down seems quite content to agree to disagree.

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