WELL, THANK YOU VERY MUCH – AT 7:27 P.M. ET:  Most foreign presidents who are invited to address a joint session of Congress go out of their way to be diplomatic.  Apparently, no one gave President Felipe Calderon of Mexico the protocol sheet.

Calderon said the usual nice things, then criticized Arizona's new illegal-immigration law, never conceding that immigration laws in Mexico are vastly more onerous. 

He then went on to link the rise in violence in Mexico directly to the lifting of the ban on the sale of assault weapons in the United States. 

This, of course, is absurd.  The drug dealers who get these assault weapons can get them from many places around the world.  If they get them from the U.S., the sales are illegal.  I doubt very much if reinstating the ban, which may or may not be a good idea, would do anything to deter illegal sales.

There may well be things we can do to help Mexico.  But I, for one, am tired of the great excuse machine.  Someone should ask President Calderon two questions:  1) Why can't Mexico, an oil-exporting country, develop enough of an economy to feed its people and make illegal immigration unnecessary, and 2) Why don't we have these same problems on the Canadian border? 

I doubt very much if these questions will be asked.  President Calderon is, in many respects, an admirable guy, and vastly preferable to the Chavez ally he defeated in the last Mexican election.  But we are not to blame for Mexico's internal problems.

May 20, 2010