ANOTHER CANDIDATE FOR THE COURT:

With friends like this who needs ... (Ruben Navarrette, 3/28/10, San Diego UNION-TRIBUNE)

The dust-up with Israel has some folks wondering if the Obama administration is going out of its way to be unfriendly to America’s friends.

Add Mexico to the list. How galling it must be for Mexican President Felipe Calderón – who is locked in a bloody war with drug cartels that are bankrolled by the consumption habits of Americans and armed with guns smuggled to Mexico from the United States – to now have to put up with Monday-morning quarterbacking from a top U.S. official over how the war is fought. [...]

[D]uring an interview on MSNBC, Napolitano responded to the slaying of three officials with the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez by challenging the effectiveness of the Mexican government’s No. 1 weapon against the cartels: the military.

“President Calderón of Mexico has been deeply involved, even sending in the military into Juarez,” Napolitano said. “That hasn’t helped.”

Mexican officials came unglued. They rattled off instances where Mexican soldiers and Marines took down major drug cartel leaders, and suggested that the government has no choice but to use the military when local police are corrupt or otherwise compromised.

That’s the key point. Calderón is using the only tool he has, and he has a right not to be second-guessed by his strongest ally.

The UR needs a Court packing plan just so he can promote all his disastrous Administration picks out of the way.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 28, 2010 7:20 AM