Libertad y la Ley

Our president has made a grave error. From an Investors Business Daily Editorial:

During his campaign, President Obama made a big deal of criticizing leaders who are elected democratically but don't govern democratically. He's had a chance to show that it mattered in Honduras. He didn't...
There was a coup all right, but it wasn't committed by the U.S. or the Honduran court. It was committed by Zelaya himself. He brazenly defied the law, and Hondurans overwhelmingly supported his removal (a pro-Zelaya rally Monday drew a mere 200 acolytes).
Yet the U.S. administration stood with Chavez and Castro, calling Zelaya's lawful removal "a coup." Obama called the action a "terrible precedent," and said Zelaya remains president.
In doing this, the U.S. condemned democrats who stood up to save their democracy, a move that should have been hailed as a historic turning of the tide against the false democracies of the region.

What's worse is that we have persisted in this error for several days, an error made very quickly. By comparison it took the Obama administration days to say anything of substance about the upheaval in Iran.

To understand how Zelaya violated Honduran law, this piece by Mary Anastasia O'Grady is excellent.

Now the United Nations has sanctioned Honduras and other states (such as Venezuela) have threatened to overthrow the new government. We are complicit as long as we toe the same line that we have taken we put real democracy in Latin America in jeopardy.