Calderón on the Attack

In Felipe Calderón's speech to Mexico ambassadors last week, the president made a thinly veiled attack on Vicente Fox's foreign policy: 

At the outset of our government we found that we were on bad terms with Cuba and we were on bad terms with the United States and we were on bad terms with Latin American and various other countries," said Calderón during a luncheon that he gave at the National Palace to the participants of the XX National Reunion of Ambassadors and Consuls.

In this administration "we have proposed to modify the terms of insertion of Mexico in the international community to ensure a presence that concords with the potential of the country..."

The comments have provoked a debate about the former president that splashed on the front page of today's Excelsior, with the PAN predictably divided on the question of Fox's foreign policy. Most of the panistas seem to agree that the foreign policy under Calderón has been less thorny, but they are divided on how much of the blame should be laid at Fox's feet. 

Whatever the answer to that question, with just a few weeks to go before the campaigns for July's elections, it seems like an odd time to provoke a intra-party spat. I can't conceive of any possible reason why Calderón would intentionally stir up such a bee's nest, which leads me to conclude that he probably was just a little more forceful and less prudential in his self-congratulation than he should have been. Which is a pretty big slip-up.