‘As of marriages, so of revolutions,’ writes a historian of Mexico. ‘The best take years to turn out well. (Francisco) Madero accomplished the overthrow of (Porfirio) Diaz in ten months of planning and action. A victory won too soon.’

The United States-Mexican film, “For Greater Glory” (Spanish title: “Cristiada”), which opened in Mexico April 20, and is scheduled for U.S. release June 1, has special meaning for the people of Jalisco — however it may be judged as cinematic fare. That’s because it revives a valorous and bloody past. “Glory” recounts a special moment in history (1926-1929) when Jalisco become the center of a furious, ambitiously dispersed post-Revolution rebellion involving 13 states.

When Miguel de la Madrid, who died April 1, at 77, began his six-year term as Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) president in 1982, he inherited from his mentor, President Jose Lopez Portillo (1976-1982), a trashed economy, and a lavish and unabashed level of corruption in every sector of government. Lopez Portillo was one of three consecutive megalomaniacal presidents who had brought Mexico to it knees, destroying its economy by the end of each of their sexenios (administrations), shattering the public’s  bruised confidence in critical government institutions, even in its own calloused ability to judge the sanity and harmfulness of its leaders.

Mainstream media in both Mexico and the United States lost a useful opportunity when they produced the internet era’s requisite undernourished obituaries (the best: Associated Press) of former Mexican president (1982-1988), Miguel de la Madrid, who died April 2, at 77.   He and his presidency are both basic and critical tools to understanding Mexico today – but not because de la Madrid was a dramatically innovative, or transformative chief executive. He is pertinent today primarily because his former long-ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), is expected to return to power in the mannequin-like figure of Enrique Peña Nieto, former governor of the State of Mexico, which surrounds Mexico City.  And because Latin America’s drug war isn’t working, Peña Nieto, whose PRI has a disastrous past of colluding with drug traffickers, is making grand promises to overhaul the current policy and reduce violence in general.