FOX'S FIRST YEAR IN OFFICE.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(EDITORIALS)

It's but a year since journalists pulled out those overused descriptions -- "seismic," "sea change" -- to report the event. Still, they did sense that something large had happened in the hemisphere. Mexicans had elected Vicente Fox their president.

The lanky businessman carried out something of a revolution. He threw the risibly named Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, out of Los Pinos, the Mexican White House.

The PRI not only had occupied the presidential dwelling since Mexico became a republic seven decades ago. It dominated the political system all those years.

That meant corruption. It meant a tendency to control the economy from the top down. That dampened economic incentives, which led to widespread poverty. Grinding poverty, as the grasping wordsmiths say.

Fox's business-oriented National Action Party, or PAN, offered hope that Mexicans could join the worldwide movement toward free ideas and free markets.

After all, Fox's last resume entry was being a top Coca-Cola executive. That, surely, could help put Mexico's government on a more businesslike footing.

How's he done?