Rodolfo Torre, a leading Mexican gubernatorial candidate on a state bordering the U.S. was assassinated by drug cartels angry over Arizona’s racist immigration policies.  Torre, who was seen as the overwhelming favorite to be elected governor in Tamaulipas was shot to death along with his chief of staff and a bodyguard.  This marks Mexico’s highest profile assassination since beloved Mexican icon Speedy Gonzalez was blown up in his car in 2003.

Eyewitnesses state that masked gunmen opened fire with a fusillade of bullets, killing the three instantly.  Since December 2006 23,000 people in Mexico have been killed in drug violence.  Mexican President Felipe Calderon blamed the assassination of Torre on “drug cartels who are challenging the integrity of the Mexican state.  But mostly it’s the fault of the racist Americans in Arizona.”

Addressing Mexico during a Prime Time television address Calderon continued:

23,000 people have been brutally assassinated in 3 1/2 years.  Husbands, fathers, children have been blindfolded, shot in the back of the head, blown up, chopped to death.  Husbands, fathers and children have been decapitated, hung, shot in the back of the head and set on fire.  Did I mention shot in the back of the head?  I did?  This violence must stop.  We must stop it at its root cause:  lawlessness and drug-related violence.  But mostly racist American policies.

Our citizens only want to live a better life. They want what every Mexican wants such as access to U.S. health care and the ability to live in freedom in the former Mexican state of Arizona. They want what every Mexican wants – the ability to not pay taxes in the United States while sending millions of dollars back to Mexico. Arizona’s racist governor, by criminalizing illegal activity has made it harder for the Mexican police to do what they should be doing, namely brutally torturing and murdering illegal immigrants from Guatemala and Belize who enter our porous southern border.

In Washington, President Obama expressed dismay over the assassination of Torre and offered his sympathy to the beleaguered Mexican people.

American must of course take full responsibility for this killing.  In the past the United States has not done enough to protect Mexican citizens living in Mexico from drug violence. We have been insular, arrogant.  My administration will fight to open our borders. I have asked the Attorney General to sue the state of Arizona to force it to non comply with existing Federal law. I can only speculate that if Congress had passed comprehensive immigration the assassination of Torre would not have happened. I ask Americans to look into their conscience.  Do we fear Mexican drug cartels because they are violent, or because their skin is brown?  And I don’t mean the fake brown of typical white supermodels who have just come from a tanning salon.

President Obama closed his comments by announcing a new world tour for 2011 where he will visit every country except England, “the traditional enemy of the U.S.” to apologize for past American wrongs.   The tour will be sponsored by Nike and U2 is tentatively scheduled to be the opening act.

It has also been announced that the bodyguard who was killed along with Torre has been fired.

“He obviously wasn’t a good bodyguard” said Calderon.

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