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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | October 2007 
Mexico's Fox Mocks Bush in Memoir
 Agence France-Presse
go to original
| Revolution of Hope: The Life, Faith, and Dreams of a Mexican Presidentby Vicente Fox and Rob Allyn
(Hardcover - Oct 4, 2007)
Check it out at Amazon.com |
Vicente Fox, known for his candid talk when he was Mexico's president, speaks his mind when describing several world personalities including US President George W. Bush in his memoir that went on sale in the United States this week.
"My first impression of George W. Bush was one of total self-confidence," writes Fox in "Revolution of Hope," a portrait of Fox's life and an account of his six-year presidency.
"He was quite simply the cockiest guy I have ever met in my life."
The future leaders of the United States and Mexico first met in 1996, when Bush was governor of Texas and Fox governor of the state of Guanajuato.
In 2000 Fox, a member of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), became the first opposition candidate to win the presidency from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which had been in power for 71 years.
Fox also calls Bush a "windshield cowboy" -- meaning someone more comfortable driving his truck around his ranch than riding a horse.
That was emphasized when Fox offered Bush to ride a horse during a later visit to Fox's ranch.
Bush "demurred, backing away from the big palomino," Fox wrote. "A horse lover can always tell when others don't share our passion for climbing aboard an animal that weighs five hundred pounds and doesn't necessarily stop when you put on the brakes."
Fox pokes fun at Bush's "grade-school-level Spanish," but praised his "cultural sensitivity" towards Hispanics, and his "real compassion for the Latino citizens" of Texas that "goes well beyond political practicality."
Fox also takes aim at leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuba's communist leader Fidel Castro.
When Chavez "gets long-winded," wrote Fox, describing the 2004 Summit of the Americas held in Mexico, "it's time for the other presidents to go for a bottle of water and some cookies, and try to do some real business in the hallways."
Fox also had an all-night dinner with Fidel Castro, "the region's most infamous revolutionary," a man who had a "strange habit of pulling his ears between every bite of food."
Nevertheless Fox was impressed at Castro's "inexhaustible energy and brilliant, diverse intelligence."
Fox writes that he sees Chavez as the "new Fidel," and laments his popularity in places like Bolivia and Ecuador.
Chavez, in turn, has called Fox "the empire's puppy." Both Chavez and Castro often refer to the United States as "the empire."
Fox describes Bill Clinton as "a role model for ex-presidents who want to make a difference," and British former prime minister Tony Blair as being "impossible not to like." |
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