I’m finding it harder and harder to swallow the rhetoric from Obama that he supports democracy. Take the coup in Honduras today as an example. First here’s how it went down:
In a nutshell, Zelaya wanted another term as president so he decided to hold a popular referendum on whether he should be eligible. Minor problem: The Honduran constitution can’t be amended by popular referendum so the country’s supreme court ordered the vote canceled. Zelaya tried to go ahead with it anyway. Literally every other arm of the Honduran government — judiciary, legislature, military — was against him, to the point where the troops who arrested him this morning were evidently acting on a court order. Why such strong, unified opposition? According to one retired Honduran general cited by Fausta, it’s because Zelaya’s a Chavez stooge and him staying on would mean “Chavez would eventually be running Honduras by proxy.”
Obama was quick to come out against this, even before it happened:
Reaction to the apparent coup was swift. U.S. President Barack Obama said he was “deeply concerned” and called on all political actors in Honduras to “respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference,” he said.
The Obama administration worked in recent days to prevent President Zelaya’s ouster, a senior U.S. official said. The State Department, in particular, communicated to Honduran officials on the ground that President Obama wouldn’t support any non-democratic transfer of power in the Central American country.
“We had some indication” that a move against Mr. Zelaya was a foot, said a U.S. official briefed on the diplomacy. “We made it clear it was something we didn’t support.”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joined Mr. Obama Sunday in criticizing the Honduran coup and calling for the restoration of the democratic process.
“We call on all parties in Honduras to respect the constitutional order and the rule of law, to reaffirm their democratic vocation, and to commit themselves to resolve political disputes peacefully and through dialogue,” Mrs. Clinton said in a statement.
So instead of standing up for democracy, Obama supported President Zalaya who was trying to thwart the constitution illegally. Instead of standing up for the rule of law he is vowing not to support the new shift in power even though it was backed by the Honduran Supreme court and their legislature. This is simply mind boggling…or is it?
When the Iranian regime began oppressing their people after they rigged their elections, Obama was quick not to criticize the regime citing that we didn’t have any evidence that their elections were based on fraud. This defied common sense because there was no way that they could count all the paper ballots in the hour or 2 after the election especially with an unprecedented turnout to the polls. Even the Iranian people knew this as they were dying in the streets in protest. And when Obama finally did criticize the regime, he still wouldn’t enumerate actual consequences of the regime’s oppressive tactics. Very non-Reaganesque.
And he was still willing to eat hot dogs with the Iranian diplomats until the administration got enough pressure to cancel the invitations.
And let’s not forget the bow to the Saudi King.
And that chummy picture with Chavez which now makes one ponder whether Obama was in cahoots with Chavez to keep Zalaya in power.
All this is adding up to a president who does not support democracy despite his claims.