THE BORDER REPORT

A fascinating theatre is brewing in Sonora these days following the June 5 daycare center fire that killed 46 children in Hermosillo. Gov. Eduardo Bours, the untouchable PRI-ista who spent his six years nearly unmarred by the press, finds himself in a ferocious back-pedal and his greatest enemy smells the blood - Sonora Senator Manlio Fabio Beltrones.

The former governor of Sonora has been embroiled in a family feud with Gov. Eduardo Bours since their childhood in Cd. Obregón. Basically, Beltrones' family is new money and Bours', old, nearly royalty. If there are two men who Beltrones considers his greatest enemies in Mexico, they are Gov. Bours and Pres. Felipe Calderón.

Up to this month, Bours enjoyed a high approval rating in Sonora, nearing 85 percent. He's being whispered about as a potential candidate for the presidency in 2012 and it can be anybody's guess which party's flag he might have flown; he carried Sonora for PAN's Calderón in the '06 elections. His tight relationship with Homeland Security Sec. Janet Napolitano assures his position as the most influential of the six border governors.

Beltrones is ... well, Beltrones. The powerful Senator ruled Sonora in the heyday of Pres. Carlos Salinas de Gortari (and Amado Carrillo). He's taken Calderón's drug war to the stages of Congress, saying that the ruling PAN lacks any kind of national security strategy and is at best, waging spot battles against organized crime. Last month, he called for the removal of the Mexican military from the drug war, saying the Army posed a greater danger to the public than the narcos themselves and that the government needed to make use of intelligence from federal police instead. When eleven mayors were arrested on trafficking charges in Michoacán last month, Beltrones was the first, so far only, to point out that their arraigo, the time they can be held without charge while they're investigated, ends shortly after the elections. (Photo courtesy, Nuevo Día)

Bours and Beltrones visibly spar with each other, usually in the halls of the Mexican Congress but earlier this week, Sen. Beltrones pulled a number on the governor that's now resonating throughout the national media.

The June 5 fire at the daycare center in Hermosillo killed 46 children. In the middle of the fire, Hermosillo resident Francisco López Villaescusa used his pickup truck to ram through a wall of the burning building so people could rush in and pull children to safety. Without saying a word, in fact letting López make the announcement, Beltrones' philanthropic foundation bought the man a new pickup truck, an 09 Silverado. Meanwhile, someone contacted MTV of all places and López's old truck is going to get a makeover on Pimp My Ride. López is the perfect icon for Beltrones; young, handsome, humble, just a young father who did what he had to do, like a New York firefighter on 9-11. The drama of the tragedy needed a hero, Beltrones made sure they got one.

Bours meanwhile, is fighting a growing exorciation in the press. Fifteen percent of the state managed daycare centers in Sonora are at least partly owned by members of his cabinet. The familial inter-relations of the daycare center's owners string right back to the governor like a four-second fuse. Quick to point out that an owner of the destroyed center is cousin to the First Lady, Bours declined to state right away that the same owner is also related to his own wife's uncle. It's like a daycare mafia; the governor's own niece runs three daycare centers in Navojoa, Hermosillo, and Nogales. Another of the daycare center's owners, Gildardo Urquidez Serrano, is the business liaison for the PRI's gubernatorial campaign candidate, Alfonso Elias Serrano. It doesn't help that his rival, PAN-ista Guillermo Padrés Elías, is his own cousin. It's like George and Jeb Bush fighting over Texas.

Bours' term is up very soon and he's ending it in a shameful, inter-related scandal, the ghosts of those 46 children is going to destroy any hopes he may have had for the presidency. Well, should destroy, this is Mexico we're talking about after all. Don't think it's just PRI playing shell games, either. El Universal editor Raymundo Riva Palacio, notes that Mexico Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora almost immediately closed his investigation into the fire, saying nobody was directly responsible. Pres. Calderón forced him to reopen the case.

Meanwhile, Beltrones, the PRI dinosaur, is playing the role of philanthropic uncle, quietly puppeteering from the shadows. Nobody's said it yet, but none of his relatives had any ownership of that daycare center. I wouldn't be surprised if Beltrones made an appearance on Pimp My Ride. Without saying a word, the man launched into the national spotlight, tying himself to the only hero of Sonora's dark tragedy. No press releases, no public announcements, no damning of the politicos, Beltrones is simply letting his biggest foes hang themselves.

Beltrones, the rhetoric master, has two sayings credited to him, both relevant here in Sonora today.

"I am not rancorous, but I have a long, long memory," is one.

The second: "The law is for my friends. Justice is for my enemies."