Honduras

I’m no expert on Honduran politics. President Obama’s Republican critics say that he’s standing against the rule of law there by continuing to support ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, whom they say was properly and legally removed by that country’s Supreme Court and Congress. They might be right.

Still, I think I’ve got a pretty good nose for petty tyranny, and new Honduran president Roberto Micheletti sure sounds like he’s fitting the bill:

The de facto president of Honduras, Roberto Micheletti, appeared to have bowed to pressure at home and from abroad on Monday, saying that he would lift his order suspending civil liberties.

Since then, he has been in no hurry to keep his promise.

Mr. Micheletti spent the week consulting with the Supreme Court and other parts of the government about the decree, which his government announced on Sunday night. But while he has been discussing lifting the order, his security forces have been busy enforcing it.

Early Monday morning, they shut down two broadcasters sympathetic to the ousted president, Manuel Zelaya.

Mr. Zelaya’s allies accused Mr. Micheletti of stalling on lifting the decree as he tries to dismantle the network of Zelaya supporters.

“He has in his hands a repressive weapon to try to demobilize the resistance,” Rafael Alegría, the leader of the farmworkers’ union, said of Mr. Micheletti in an interview with Radio Globo on Friday. Radio Globo, which was closed and taken off the air on Monday, is broadcasting over the Internet

This wouldn’t be quite so disturbing to me, except that this kind of leadership apparently has the endorsement of Congressional Republicans:

A delegation of Republican members of the United States Congress visited Tegucigalpa on Friday to offer support to Mr. Micheletti. The Obama administration has called for the restoration of Mr. Zelaya and it has suspended all military and some economic aid to the de facto government. Senator Jim DeMint, a Republican from South Carolina, said that calling Mr. Zelaya’s ouster a coup was “ill informed and baseless.”

Mr. DeMint and three other legislators traveling with him planned to meet with members of the Supreme Court, which backed Mr. Zelaya’s ouster, as well as with the presidential candidates.

They also met with Mr. Micheletti, who told them that he would lift the decree and restore civil liberties by Monday at the latest, Wesley Denton, Mr. DeMint’s spokesman, told The Associated Press on Friday night.

From where I sit, it appears to me that Republicans are rooting and working against President Obama no matter how benign his activities. But let me suggest that the events in Honduras are maybe somewhat more complicated than the right-left socialist-freedom template we’ve projected there. And perhaps Republicans would be better off not siding with an emerging tyrant merely to stick their collective thumb in our president’s eye.

I think we now know if the Honduran coup was a blow for democracy

Conservatives has spent recent days criticizing President Obama for condemning the coup in Honduras because — they said — President Mel Zelaya was removed from office for Constitutional overreaching. It was in defense of democracy, not an attack, that the Honduran military ran the president out of the country.

The case seemed plausible until today. Al Giordano reports:

The same [Honduran] Congress that, after the military had kidnapped, beaten and dumped President Manuel Zelaya in Costa Rica had declared one of its own, Roberto Micheletti as the coup “president” today passed an emergency law stripping Hondurans of the following rights from the country’s constitution:

1. The right to protest.

2. Freedom in one’s home from unwarranted search, seizure and arrest.

3. Freedom of association.

4. Guarantees of rights of due process while under arrest.

5. Freedom of transit in the country.

But conservatives want you to believe Obama’s criticism of Zelaya’s removal somehow makes him a disciple of Fidel Castro. Looks to me like he’s on the side of democracy.

Obama proves his hatred of democracy by opposing military coups

I’m not sure what to make of the coup in Honduras. Generally speaking, I’d say — and most people would say — that the military overthrow of a democratically elected leader is a bad thing. But American conservatives are arguing strenuously that President Mel Zelaya had defied Honduran law and thus deserved ouster. And they might have a point.

What’s ridiculous, though, is their condemnation of President Obama’s condemnation of the coup. A conservative friend of mine approvingly tweeted a link to the following nonsense.

We believe President Obama found the clarity to align himself immediately and issue a strong position statement in Honduras when he could not in Iran because doing so in Honduras meant following Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, and the growing communist movement in South America.

That’s right. Obama condemned a military coup because he loves Communism! Contemptible.

For what it’s worth, the United Nations received broad support in condemning the coup. So did the Organization of American States. Perhaps conservatives would disagree, but they can’t all be motivated by communism.

What’s more, there’s evidence that Obama’s anti-coup stance has actually short-circuited Chavez’s usual demagoguery. But you know, Obama agreed with Hugo Chavez about something, so clearly that’s proof he’s a secret Communist who hates America. Like I said: Contemptible.