Friday, June 01, 2012

Restoring Suspicions Abroad

Mexico's ambassador to the United States said that the Fast and Furious gun-running scandal has hurt our reputation in Mexico (Tip to Instapundit):

“Fast and Furious has poisoned the well-spring of public opinion in Mexico as it relates to the cooperation and engagement with the United States,” Sarukhan said.

“It does put a lot of strain on the huge strides that we’ve achieved with two successive administrations in the United States,” he said.

Fast and Furious was a US operation that let 2,000 guns be purchased for Mexican drug cartels in the US and then smuggled into Mexico. Mexicans died as a result. And US officials seem more interested in making a case for gun control here than in stopping the purported flow of weapons into Mexico.

Also note that the ambassador noted that relations were not strained because of the Bush administration since relations had improved under two successive administrations--presumably Clinton and Bush 43, but possibly Bush 43 and Obama until the scandal broke.

As an aside, the Obama administration thinks that it has the edge over Romney with Hispanic voters here even though the Obama administration has helped arm the brutal drug cartels back in Mexico where they still have friends and family? Huh. Hispanics must really, really love Obamacare.