Goodbye, Cindy. Hello, Elvira

Liberal and leftist interest groups put on shows much the way Broadway producers do. They write scripts, pick leads, and work on scenes.

Like their Broadway counterparts, they want their shows to draw huge audiences.

To get people “to come to the show,” liberal/leftists count on gobs of free publicity and sympathetic reviews from their MSM friends.

In the past few years the liberal/leftists’ most popular shows have been Cindy Sheehan, Peace Activist and Mike Nifong, Durham Prosecutor.

But neither show “sells” anymore.

A Cindy Sheehan production now rarely draws more than a few dozen; and that’s after a big MSM press buildup. When she appears on liberal talk radio network NPR, she draws about as well as Gerhard Schroeder.

And Mike Nifong, Durham Prosecutor?

That was an improvisational production. Liberals and leftists liked the opening scenes but when people started walking on stage saying, “They're innocent,” and, “Did you hear Nifong was disbarred?”, liberals and leftist began leaving.

They were saying things like: “Pot banging is more fun; and it makes us feel more righteous, too.”

So liberal/leftists need to roll out a new production. And they did that this weekend.

It’s a show about a poor, heroic, illegal immigrant mother, Elvira Arellano, who’s heartlessly separated from her young child as she’s reaching out to help others whose families are being torn apart by an organization liberal/leftist producers often cast as an evil doer: The United States Government.

One of those helping with this latest production is the Associated Press. Its summary of the opening scenes from act one is below.

I can’t tell from just the opening scenes if the show will be as big a “hit” as Cindy Sheehan, Peace Activist was for a few years or if it will “tank” as Mike Nifong, Durham Prosecutor did after months of very favorable MSM coverage designed to prop it up.

What do you think?
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From the AP: Immigration Activist Deported to Mexico


An illegal immigrant who took refuge in a Chicago church for a year to avoid being separated from her U.S.-born son has been deported to Mexico, the church's pastor said.

Elvira Arellano became an activist and a national symbol for illegal immigrant parents as she defied her deportation order and spoke out from her religious sanctuary. She held a news conference last week to announce that she would finally leave the church to try to lobby U.S. lawmakers for change.

She had just spoken at rally Los Angeles rally when she was arrested Sunday outside Our Lady Queen of Angels church and deported, said the Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago, where Arellano had been living.

"She has been deported. She is free and in Tijuana," said Coleman, who said he spoke to her on the phone. "She is in good spirits. She is ready to continue the struggle against the separation of families from the other side of the border."

Her 8-year-old son, Saul, is now living with Coleman's family. During a news conference in Los Angeles after Arellano's arrest, the boy hid behind the pastor's wife and wiped away tears.

Arellano had said on Saturday that she was not afraid of being taken into custody by immigration agents.

"From the time I took sanctuary, the possibility has existed that they arrest me in the place and time they want," she said in Spanish. "I only have two choices. I either go to my country, Mexico, or stay and keep fighting. I decided to stay and fight."

Arellano, 32, arrived in Washington state illegally in 1997. She was deported to Mexico shortly afterward, but returned and moved to Illinois in 2000, taking a job cleaning planes at O'Hare International Airport.

She was arrested in 2002 at O'Hare and convicted of working under a false Social Security number. She was to surrender to authorities last August but instead sought refuge at the church on Aug. 15, 2006.

She had not left the church property until she decided to travel by car to Los Angeles, Coleman said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed her Sunday arrest. Spokeswoman Gail Montenegro said the agency would have further details on the deportation later Monday.

Arellano is staying with a friend in Tijuana, Coleman said. He said she had brought to light her struggle, and for that, "she has won a victory."

"She'll be organizing on the Mexican side of the border while we're organizing in the (United) States," Coleman said Monday. "She'll be talking to organizations throughout Mexico and congressmen in Mexico City."

Coleman said he and other activists will continue Arellano's original plan to go to Washington, D.C., and take part in a prayer meeting and rally for immigration reform at the Capitol on Sept. 12.

Immigration activists promised protests and vigils to support Arellano.

"We are sad, but at the same time we are angry," said Javier Rodriguez, a Chicago immigration activist who worked with Arellano. "How dare they arrest this woman?"
Anti-illegal immigrant groups said the arrest was long overdue.

"Just because the woman has gone public and made an issue of the fact that she is defying law doesn't mean the government doesn't have to do its job," said Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors limits on immigration.

Arellano has repeatedly called for a stop to immigration raids that break up families with some members who are in the U.S. legally and others illegally. She has said her son would be deprived of his rights as a U.S. citizen if he had to go to Mexico simply because she did.

Emma Lozano, Coleman's wife and head of immigration rights group Centro Sin Fronteras in Chicago, said she was Saul's legal guardian.

"He's taking it better than we thought he would," Lozano said.

While being arrested, Arellano spoke briefly with her son before submitting to authorities, Lozano said.

"She calmed him down, hugged him and gave him a blessing," Lozano said.