Mexican politics: Crisis or rule of law?

If anyone has any insights, or can point me to a good source on Mexican politics, I'd be grateful. Is what is going on now, in which populist Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has been stripped of immunity -- making an '06 candidacy for president unlikely -- going to result in a political crisis? Are his critics correct, that he doesn't have much use for the rule of law?

I know those questions aren't either/or.

And what role is the Bush administration's typically ham-fisted diplomacy south o' the border playing in this latest controversy?

And has Vincente Fox's term of office, in which he was supposed to bring in a new era of political openness and economic progress (aided by his close buddyship with Dubya), been a complete failure?

UPDATE: Wolcott has more, much more.