Sorry, but I am feeling a bit under the weather. I hope to return tomorrow. I will leave you with another example from Flopping Aces of Obama’s stupidity. As a reader on the site asked: Why is it okay to meddle with a nation who removes their President via every legal channel, but it’s not okay to meddle with a despotic regime in Iran flagrantly ignoring fair elections and committing human rights abuses on their population? Read the whole thing to see why.

Obama admin meddles, demanding “full restoration of democratic order” in Hondurass

What a difference a day makes. “Meddling” by the Obama admin is now in vogue when it supports extreme leftist leaders, as I posted on Sunday. But the Obama admin is not confining themselves merely to “words”, but is evidently working behind the scenes to get ousted President, Manuel Zelaya, reinstated.

Honduras’ newly appointed leader vowed Monday to resist pressure from across the Americas to reinstate the president ousted in a military coup, as protesters burned tires outside the occupied presidential palace.

Leaders from Hugo Chavez to Barack Obama called for the reinstatement of Manuel Zelaya, who was arrested in his pajamas Sunday morning by soldiers who stormed his residence and flew him into exile. Eight leftist countries pulled their ambassadors from Honduras.

Roberto Micheletti, appointed president by Congress, insisted that Zelaya was legally removed by the courts and Congress for violating Honduras’ constitution — allegedly to extend his rule.

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Micheletti said he was sure that “80 to 90 percent of the Honduran population is happy with what happened.”

True or false, the rest of the world certainly was not, and the president of the U.N. General Assembly invited Zelaya to address the world gathering.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the U.S. was working for “full restoration of democratic order in Honduras.”

U.S. diplomats said they are trying to ensure Zelaya’s safety and get him restored as president. Clinton signalled, however, the U.S. wasn’t siding fully with Zelaya, who had rejected several Supreme Court decisions before being overthrown.

“There are certain concerns about orders by independent judicial officials that should be followed,” Clinton said. “But the extraordinary step taken of arresting and expelling the president is our first and foremost concern right now.”

She indicated the State Department has not formally declared Zelaya’s ouster to be a coup because U.S. laws would then require cutting aid to the impoverished country.

“We’re considering the implications of it,” she said.

Removal from office for usurping rule of law in Honduras is an “extraordinary step”?? What I find “extraordinary” is the two-faced US President’s foreign policy, as well as his friends in the international community. Also calling for reinstatement is the Organization of American States. And then, of course, there’s the UN… with Ban Ki-moon parroting the usual “condemns” comment.

UPDATE: Were the post-arrest meddling not enough, Sweetness & Light latched on to more than interesting revelations in a WSJ article today, that documents senior Obama officials admitted they worked feverishly to prevent the law-breaking President’s arrest.

The Obama administration and members of the Organization of American States had worked for weeks to try to avert any moves to overthrow President Zelaya, said senior U.S. officials. Washington’s ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens, sought to facilitate a dialogue between the president’s office, the Honduran parliament and the military.

The efforts accelerated over the weekend, as Washington grew increasingly alarmed. “The players decided, in the end, not to listen to our message,” said one U.S. official involved in the diplomacy. On Sunday, the U.S. embassy here tried repeatedly to contact the Honduran military directly, but was rebuffed. Washington called the removal of President Zelaya a coup and said it wouldn’t recognize any other leader.

The U.S. stand was unpopular with Honduran deputies. One congressman, Toribio Aguilera, got prolonged applause from his colleagues when he urged the U.S. ambassador to reconsider. Mr. Aguilera said the U.S. didn’t understand the danger that Mr. Zelaya and his friendships with Mr. Chavez and Cuba’s Fidel Castro posed.

Well… just a slight correction to Mr. Aguilera’s comment: I’d say that many of us understand the dangers posed by such friendships and alliances with the Chavez’s and Castro’s of the world. It’s the leftist patsy occupying the Oval Office that simply doesn’t “get it”, were I to give him the benefit of the doubt of wanting what is best for America as we have known it to be since it’s inception. Perhaps, a more accurate assessment is that Obama *does* get it, and openly lends his support to such leadership and dangerous allies because of his “empathies” that lie strongly with similiar governing ideology. Perhaps, with his popularity with citizenry that seem unconcerned with the US’s march towards the far left, he feels this is his personal mandate in “remaking America”.

END UPDATE

I would so look forward to a viable explanation of why it’s okay to meddle with a nation who removes their President via every legal channel, but it’s not okay to meddle with a despotic regime in Iran flagrantly ignoring fair elections and committing human rights abuses on their population. But I won’t be holding my breath for the big Zero – and his fellow “citizens of the world” – to reconcile their actions…

Then again, how long before the current WH occupant finds himself subject to the same in the US, should his present path to spit on US Constitutional law continue? Eventually someone’s going to have the impetus to haul this arrogant “follower of the free world” before the SCOTUS.

The full story can be found in the Washington Post.

Honduras Defends Its Democracy

Fidel Castro and Hillary Clinton object.

By MARY ANASTASIA O’GRADY

Hugo Chávez’s coalition-building efforts suffered a setback yesterday when the Honduran military sent its president packing for abusing the nation’s constitution.

It seems that President Mel Zelaya miscalculated when he tried to emulate the success of his good friend Hugo in reshaping the Honduran Constitution to his liking.

But Honduras is not out of the Venezuelan woods yet. Yesterday the Central American country was being pressured to restore the authoritarian Mr. Zelaya by the likes of Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, Hillary Clinton and, of course, Hugo himself. The Organization of American States, having ignored Mr. Zelaya’s abuses, also wants him back in power. It will be a miracle if Honduran patriots can hold their ground.
[THE AMERICAS] Associated Press

That Mr. Zelaya acted as if he were above the law, there is no doubt. While Honduran law allows for a constitutional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress.

But Mr. Zelaya declared the vote on his own and had Mr. Chávez ship him the necessary ballots from Venezuela. The Supreme Court ruled his referendum unconstitutional, and it instructed the military not to carry out the logistics of the vote as it normally would do.

The top military commander, Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, told the president that he would have to comply. Mr. Zelaya promptly fired him. The Supreme Court ordered him reinstated. Mr. Zelaya refused.

Calculating that some critical mass of Hondurans would take his side, the president decided he would run the referendum himself. So on Thursday he led a mob that broke into the military installation where the ballots from Venezuela were being stored and then had his supporters distribute them in defiance of the Supreme Court’s order.

The attorney general had already made clear that the referendum was illegal, and he further announced that he would prosecute anyone involved in carrying it out. Yesterday, Mr. Zelaya was arrested by the military and is now in exile in Costa Rica.

It remains to be seen what Mr. Zelaya’s next move will be. It’s not surprising that chavistas throughout the region are claiming that he was victim of a military coup. They want to hide the fact that the military was acting on a court order to defend the rule of law and the constitution, and that the Congress asserted itself for that purpose, too.

Mrs. Clinton has piled on as well. Yesterday she accused Honduras of violating “the precepts of the Interamerican Democratic Charter” and said it “should be condemned by all.” Fidel Castro did just that. Mr. Chávez pledged to overthrow the new government.

Honduras is fighting back by strictly following the constitution. The Honduran Congress met in emergency session yesterday and designated its president as the interim executive as stipulated in Honduran law. It also said that presidential elections set for November will go forward. The Supreme Court later said that the military acted on its orders. It also said that when Mr. Zelaya realized that he was going to be prosecuted for his illegal behavior, he agreed to an offer to resign in exchange for safe passage out of the country. Mr. Zelaya denies it.

Many Hondurans are going to be celebrating Mr. Zelaya’s foreign excursion. Street protests against his heavy-handed tactics had already begun last week. On Friday a large number of military reservists took their turn. “We won’t go backwards,” one sign said. “We want to live in peace, freedom and development.”

Besides opposition from the Congress, the Supreme Court, the electoral tribunal and the attorney general, the president had also become persona non grata with the Catholic Church and numerous evangelical church leaders. On Thursday evening his own party in Congress sponsored a resolution to investigate whether he is mentally unfit to remain in office.

For Hondurans who still remember military dictatorship, Mr. Zelaya also has another strike against him: He keeps rotten company. Earlier this month he hosted an OAS general assembly and led the effort, along side OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza, to bring Cuba back into the supposedly democratic organization.

The OAS response is no surprise. Former Argentine Ambassador to the U.N. Emilio Cárdenas told me on Saturday that he was concerned that “the OAS under Insulza has not taken seriously the so-called ‘democratic charter.’ It seems to believe that only military ‘coups’ can challenge democracy. The truth is that democracy can be challenged from within, as the experiences of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and now Honduras, prove.” A less-kind interpretation of Mr. Insulza’s judgment is that he doesn’t mind the Chávez-style coup.

The struggle against chavismo has never been about left-right politics. It is about defending the independence of institutions that keep presidents from becoming dictators. This crisis clearly delineates the problem. In failing to come to the aid of checks and balances, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Insulza expose their true colors.