On Honduras, Obama Sides with the Dictators

Mel Zelaya, the president of Honduras who was working tirelessly to usurp the Honduran Constitution and make himself that country’s ultimate authority, was deposed Sunday in a bloodless coup.

Zelaya’s ouster drew quick condemnation from his socialist allies in the region, including Cuba’s dictator-for-life Fidel Castro; Venezuela’s soon-to-be-dictator-for-life Hugo Chavez; Chavez wannabe and stooge Rafael Correa, the socialist president of Ecuador; Nicaraguan president and former Marxist dictator Daniel Ortega; and Bolivia’s Marxist strongman Evo Morales, among others.

Zelaya, though he was a democratically elected president, was chipping away at Honduras’ Constitution, attempting to push through decidedly un-democratic and illegal amendments that would, in essence, have allowed him to add the appellation “-for-life” after his presidential title, thereby emulating his allies in the region. Neither the Honduran Supreme Court, Congress, military, nor general population would accept this, and Zelaya was sent packing.

Not surprisingly, both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama spoke out against those Hondurans using the coup as a means of protecting their democracy (a method not altogether unlike that of our own founding fathers) and came out firmly on the side of the socialists. Clinton, who accused the Hondurans of violating “the precepts of the Interamerican Democratic Charter,” said the coup “should be condemned by all.”

Obama called on “all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter.”

Not once did either mention Zelaya’s efforts to usurp those very same “democratic norms.”

None of this was a surprise.

What was a surprise, however, was the speed with which the comments condemning the events in Honduras were made. By contrast, when the disenfranchised Iranians were demonstrating and dying in the streets of Tehran as a result of a rigged election, the Obama administration was deliberately silent, lest it be accused of “meddling” in Iran’s internal affairs. That same administration, however, felt no such limitation when it swiftly condemned what happened in Honduras, thereby “meddling” in that country’s internal affairs.

For this president, the main difference between the two events is that in the case of Honduras, he has the chance to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with his fellow socialists.