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A couple of leftover questions from Tuesday's coverage of Mexico's War on Drugs were addressed by reporting on Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton's diplomatic visit to Mexico City. The volume of annual narcotics imports from Mexico remains a puzzlement: Tuesday CBS' Seth Doane put the figure at between $18bn and $39bn; ABC's Brian Ross used $65bn; now NBC's Andrea Mitchell leans towards Doane's high end with $38bn. ABC's Ross also mentioned a federal law enforcement publication that warned that Mexico was on The Pathway to a Failed State. This is what CBS' Lara Logan found in response: "In the capital, authorities were eager to send another message, that Mexico is not in danger of becoming a failed state" before she added that "the safety of the capital is in stark contrast to the chaos and bloodshed in Mexico's border cities."
NBC's Mitchell quoted the Secretary of State as acknowledging that the United States "has to take responsibility for the insatiable appetite for drugs that is fueling the illegal trade." CBS' Logan, meanwhile, talked to Patricia Espinosa, the Foreign Minister of Mexico, who understated: "Militarizing the border is something that is seen as a very delicate issue." Logan talked to unidentified critics of President Felipe Calderon who interpreted his violent military crackdown against narcotraffickers as a sign that Calderon "has stirred up a hornets' nest and is only now discovering that the Mexican state is too weakened by fear and corruption to bring the situation under control."
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