Back in July, Washington Post reporter Nick Miroff wrote a front-page report on conservative Virginia blogger Greg Letiecq, suggesting he was a "mouse-pushing crackpot" and a "fringe extremist" for claiming, among other things, that his opponents in a local fight over illegal immigration were "unassimilated marxist radicals." In Monday’s Post, on the front of the Metro section (at least in Virginia), Miroff has finally explored the left-wing side, specifically "Mexicans Without Borders" leader Ricardo Juarez, and acknowledges that the Marxist Zapatista Army of National Liberation "have shaped Juarez’s worldview and inspired his organizational strategies – minus the ski masks and the AK-47s." So Letiecq was right, raising the question: why didn’t Miroff do the elementary work of testing Letiecq’s claims before he wrote up the "crackpot" story in July?
Casual readers of Monday’s Post might miss the Miroff piece, since it isn’t exactly headlined "Illegal-Immigration Booster Reveres Mexican Communist Guerrillas." Instead, it’s blander, even if it’s negative: "A Strong, but Divisive, Voice for Immigrants: Boycott of Pr. William Will Test Leader." Inside the Metro section, there’s a picture of Juarez next to a priest in a Roman collar, and the headline is even blander: "Journey to Latino Leadership Began In a Mexican Town." In other words, "Move along, reader, no radicals being reported on here."
For those who read deeply into it, the tone of Miroff’s story is mildly negative, suggesting that Juarez's new strategy to boycott businesses who refuse to side with his illegal-alien advocacy on their storefronts might not work. It's a "move Juarez’s critics say is typical of his overheated rhetoric, radical politics, and strong-arm style."
He doesn’t quote Letiecq in his new piece – no victory dance here – but he does allow Corey Stewart, the Prince William County board chairman to say he sees Juarez as an "extremist" and objects to his group’s name, suggesting it "makes me think they don’t believe there should be any controls to stop people from coming in illegally." He noted county officials see him as a "fire-breathing rabble rouser who has created an undue sense of alarm among Prince William’s Hispanic residents."
So Miroff has offered some balance today in response to conservative criticism. It’s just too bad this couldn’t have been incorporated in the earlier story before his provocative portrayal of Letiecq as a wild-eyed blogger making unprovable charges. Here’s the fuller section on Juarez’s Zapatista inspirations, which arrived late, in paragraph 22:
Today, Juarez and his wife, Patricia, live with Alex, his wife and their three children in a two-story Woodbridge home. A photo of early 20th-century Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata hangs in the den, casting a burning stare from beneath a large sombrero.
Zapata's modern-day acolytes, the leftist rebels of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, have shaped Juarez's worldview and inspired his organizational strategies -- minus the ski masks and AK-47s. Although Juarez certainly does not advocate armed struggle in the Virginia suburbs, he has worked with Zapatista-affiliated activist organizations, according to Juarez and Web sites, and shares the rebel group's contention that U.S. free-trade polices hurt Latin America’s poor and drive emigration.
Of course, Juarez's battles don't transpire in the jungles of Chiapas but in the parking lots of Virginia 7-Elevens, where day laborers gather to solicit work. He and several activist friends formed Mexicans Without Borders in 2000, he said, primarily to assist and advocate for the rights of immigrant workers who were cheated out of wages, injured or in legal trouble.
It’s sort of funny that Miroff begins his article with Juarez sneaking across the border: "He had no particular American dream in mind, he says, no vision of white picket fences or the Liberty torch." Yes, if you’re a Marxist, you probably don’t arrive in the Land of Capitalist Pigs with a lump in your throat and "God Bless America" on your lips.
