Romancing the corn

The price of a tortilla is going up—and the United States is partly to blame. America’s infatuation with ethanol has a price south of the border. And in the aftermath of tight elections in Mexico, it’s enough to shake the political landscape | Clint Rainey

MEXICO CITY— "He is a thief!" one demonstrator shouted. The next indignant leftist, 23-year-old student Alán Rodin, went further: "Your president, Felipe Calderón, is more than a thief! He is taking all the corn, too! He wants you to starve! Calderón cares nothing about us—not you or me!"

When President George Bush comes here next week to visit Calderón, who won the presidency in a July election almost as close as the Bush-Gore hanging-chad election in 2000, he should hope he's adequately briefed on how the U.S. ethanol craze is affecting the lives of the poor and breathing new life into leftwing politics south of the border—in this case, the political party of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who lost narrowly last year.