The Constitutional Alamo

Welcome to the show, Barack.  After waiting weeks to make any sort of statement about the violence in Iran, Obama quickly comes out swinging for his Marxist comrade, ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya.

by Michael Naragon

“We believe that the coup was not legal,” the president told reporters on Monday, “and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras, the democratically elected president there.”

The administration has not yet officially designated the overthrow of Zelaya as a coup d’etat, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “We do think that this has evolved into a coup.”  The official view of the transition makes a difference to the amount of U.S. aid that can be sent to Honduras.

Regardless of the official position, however, the president apparently enjoyed saying the word coup, perhaps to show off his knowledge of French after chastizing the American people during the campaign over our lack of foreign language experience.

“It would be a terrible precedent,” Obama said after his meeting with Columbian president Alvaro Uribe Monday, “if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition, rather than democratic elections.”

The problem with Obama’s statements is that this is not a military coup.  The military was called in to remove Zelaya, but at the request of the country’s judiciary.  Zelaya, like his Communist neighbors Hugo Chavez and the Castro brothers, was making attempts to alter the constitution of Honduras to make his re-election possible.  In Honduras, the president can only serve one four-year term, a policy which makes this American swoon with envy.

After raising, pardon the pun, red flags with his inquiries–which upset the military,the Honduran Congress, and the judiciary–the Court called for Zelaya’s ousting.  The president, meanwhile, is attempting to paint this as a military coup.

In a typical military overthrow of a nation’s leader, that leader is replaced by some ambitious officer in the army, who then declares himself dictator.  The interim leader of Honduras, Roberto Micheletti, was appointed by that nation’s Congress.  Doesn’t sound like Honduras will be turned into a military dictatorship any time soon.

So a Latin American president who was seeking to subvert the rule of law in his country is supported in his efforts by the president of the United States and a smattering of socialists and Communists.  Many of the people and their representatives–also democratically elected–cut Zelaya off at the pass and kicked him out.  Why is Obama so concerned with this turn of events?  Why would he be so callous toward the people of Iran and so fixated with Honduras?

Methinks it cuts a bit too close for our own democratically elected Marxist leader who would love to change our Constitution in order to extend his ACORN-assisted reign.  What would be the American People’s reaction to such attempts?  Could that be why our president fears the “terrible precedent”? Viva la Honduras!