Friday, Oct. 1, 2004 | 8:59 a.m.
"Yo soy Presidente George W. Bush, y yo apriebo este mesaje," stated President Bush at the beginning of a Spanish-language television ad.
The campaign ad could be taken as a foretaste of the American regional government that Bush and his handlers envision under the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas.
In keeping with this theme of a Pan-American election, the president's nephew, George Prescott Bush (whose mother was born in Mexico) toured American expatriate communities in Mexico in search of votes. He took aim at the supposedly "barbarous" federal policy of arming Border Patrol agents with plastic pellet guns.
As a Republican, I am in the difficult position of having to either rationalize that Bush is merely pandering to the Hispanic vote, or deciding that he represents a more sinister movement to merge the U.S. into a regional government covering the Western Hemisphere.
Should I vote for Kerry in desperation?
FRANK M. PELTESON
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