Greetings from Mexico, where I am hiding out and working on a book.
Tonight, we don't have THE speech. Nope. It's not playing here. I guess you can get it on the Toobs or if you have a satellite plan that shows some US stations that are broadcasting it. But I don't have that. And to be blunt, I'm sure that tomorrow you'll all tell me all about it.
No, in Mexico and in Central and South America tonight what matters is World Cup Qualifying. Futbol. If you insist, soccer. And it is going totally to eclipse the impact of anything Barack Obama may or not say about anything. In fact, it's going to eclipse just about everything.
Can you imagine this? Can you understand this "alternate reality?" Can you understand what THE speech looks like from here? Let me try to explain this.
What's important here tonight is the World Cup Qualifying. Period. Everything else is tied for tenth place.
Tonight we have Mexico v. Honduras, an extremely important game for Mexico, which has finally averted a series of disastrous games and is now playing every game very well.
And in South America? Paraguay v. Argentina is underway as I write this, with Paraguay ahead 1 - 0, and Argentina trying to hold on to a trip to South Africa. It's almost unthinkable that Diego Maradonna's team is, well, so inconsistent. And might actually not make the trip.
If I interrupted the broadcasts tonight to tell everyone south of the Rio Grande that tonight in the United States there was a big speech by the President about whether US citizens were entitled to health care, almost everybody would laugh out loud. What? they'd say. The US doesn't have 100% socialized care for every single body? You've got to be kidding. What the F do they have?
No, I'd have to say, I'm not kidding. And in some quarters, an awful lot of people in the US are about to find out that, ut oh, they're not any closer to 100 percent health care than they were in 2007. Or in 1807.
From here, the nation's inability or unwillingness to provide health care for every single one of the people within its border seems to be a species of insanity. And the debate about how that is not an absolute right of every person in the US seems impossible. Are things that backward there, my neighbors ask. Well, I tell them, I guess so.
Now I'm going back to the game. I hope you enjoy the speech.