Obama Takes Back Clinton's Comments on Mexico

President Obama took Hillary Clinton’s foot out of the administration’s mouth yesterday, taking back her comments that likened Mexico to the Colombia of the ‘80s and ‘90s. “Mexico is an ample democracy, with a growing economy,” Obama said in an interview with the Spanish-language La Opinion newspaper, translated by Yahoo, “and because of that you can’t compare what is happening to Mexico with what happened in Colombia 20 years ago.”

Yesterday, of course, Clinton made precisely that comparison in a gathering of foreign policy experts. Mexico’s drug traffickers are “morphing into … what we would consider an insurgency,” Clinton said. “It’s looking more and more like Colombia looked 20 years ago.” Those comments offended Mexican politicians, according to the Christian Science Monitor. Many worried the comments presaged a Plan Colombia-style US military intervention. (More Mexico stories.)