what’s spanish for chutzpah? Zapatero.
Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero deserves a special award for transatlantic chutzpah. During his recent visit to Mexico, he ended the state dinner held in his honor by toasting Mexican President Felipe Calderón with a sterling example of post-modern pontification for which Spanish leftists are so famous: “There is no wall that can obstruct the dream of a better life,” Zapatero proclaimed.
The “wall” that Zapatero is so worried about is, of course, the anti-illegal immigrant fence that, if everything goes as planned, will one day run along one-third of the 2,000 mile (3,200 km) border between Mexico and the United States… and not the twin razor wire-topped fences that separate the Spain’s north African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla from those people in Morocco and the rest of Africa who have dreams of a better life in Spain.
It could be that Zapatero was just trying to divert attention away from a damning report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch that accuses Spanish authorities of mistreating and neglecting hundreds of migrant African children at holding centers on the Canary Islands. Or perhaps he was still fuming that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, during her recent six-hour stopover in Madrid, did not extend the long-awaited invitation for Zapatero to visit the White House.