Perhaps that is fitting for a President always trying to strike a balance between left and right, Democrat and Republican, confrontation and capitulation, and between soaring rhetoric and pointless platitudes.
Inaugurations are symbolic moments.
Bill Clinton has always been good at symbols. For the sake of the nation, let the substance quickly follow. Clinton officials arranged the loan two years ago to underwrite Mexico's peso to avert a financial collapse. Despite the loan's success, controversy over its merit continues - largely wrapped up in the continuing dispute over the North American Free Trade Agreement and Mexico's big trade surplus with the United States. This particular action, however, was not so much about free trade as it was about international action to prevent an important nation's financial collapse and to keep problems from spreading to other economies.