June 30, 2009
The company you keep
The quality of the reporting on events has been pretty poor, with even supposedly knee-jerk rightwingers like Fox News buying into the "coup d'etat" meme, notwithstanding the Honduran Supreme Court and the Congress essentially ordering the military to act, in accordance with their nation's laws.
Charles Krauthammer addressed our Supreme Leader's rather misguided response on last night's panel segment of Special Report.
Well, the president has a knack for getting all of these big decisions wrong. Two weeks ago, he refuses to meddle in a country where peaceful demonstrators are getting shot by a theocratic dictatorship. He doesn't want to choose sides.
And now he's eager to meddle on behalf of the president in Honduras who is a Chavez wannabe, who is strong-arming his way to a referendum — that has been declared illegal by his Supreme Court — as a way to...establish a constituent assembly which will establish a new constitution, which will be a Chavez-like dictatorship.
That's what everybody understands in Honduras, and that's why the Supreme Court had ruled the referendum illegal. Only Congress has a right to call it, not the president. Congress had denounced it.
The Supreme Court had told the military not to assist in the referendum because it's illegal. So Zelaya fires the chief of staff of the army. The Supreme Court orders him reinstated; he fires him again.
This guy is acting extra-constitutionally. Yes, he was elected, but Hitler was as well, and Chavez also was. It's easy to dismantle a democracy if you're president and if you are intent on doing it — and [Zelaya] is intent on doing it.
So our decision ought to be: Yes, a coup isn't a nice thing, but it's preferable to having Zelaya dismantle the democracy. And we should insist on the elections of a president as scheduled in November, so it is a temporary situation.
Look, a rule of thumb here is whenever you find yourself on the side of Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, and the Castro twins, you ought to reexamine your assumptions.
Sometimes the company you keep says a lot about who you are.
Posted by Mike Lief at June 30, 2009 07:58 AM
| TrackBack
Comments
Ooooh . . . brutal commentary. If you don't stop publicizing this sort of stuff, you won't get a high office in The One's administration.
Posted by: The Little Coach at June 30, 2009 08:53 AM