Barack Obama and the Marx Brothers?

In the midst of the attempted government takeover of American health care, bloggers Yukio Ngaby at Critical Narrative and William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection (among others) have asked that we also keep one eye on the safety and civil rights of Hondurans in their struggle to maintain their constitution.

The courts and legislature of this small Central American republic (population about 7.5 million) lawfully prevented a dictatorial takeover attempt by their ousted president, Manuel Zelaya. This action predictably annoyed Latin American Marxist regimes and, somewhat surprisingly, also met with the disapproval of a former American Constitutional Law professor who currently holds the office of President of the United States.

Now, Gerald Warner of the UK Telegraph has provided a few thoughts from across the pond about Obama's pique with the Hondurans:

Meanwhile, in the wider world, American foreign policy is beginning very satisfactorily to fill the vacuum left by the Soviet Union. The Obama administration has set itself the objective of establishing Marxist regimes in the remaining democratic states of Latin America. Fidel has had his thunder stolen by Barack. The current project, being enthusiastically pursued by the White House, is to reinstate the Marxist fruitcake Manuel Zelaya, client of Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, as president of Honduras.

Zelaya’s return is being demanded by Chavez, Nicaraguan Sandinista president Daniel Ortega and Evo Morales, president of Bolivia. These hoods are the Latin American chapter of the Axis of Evil, but Washington loves them. When the Honduran democrats stood unexpectedly firm against Zelaya’s return, Chavez telephoned the State Department to ask for help. Correct me if I am wrong, but I somehow do not think that when Fidel Castro was having problems subverting a Latin American democracy his first instinct was to ring up Condie Rice and cry on her shoulder.

The administration is supposed to be the new, cerebral replacement for dumb Dubya. So, how come it assumed, after the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court, in accordance with the constitution, had ordered the army to depose Zelaya that this was a “military coup”? The government has been embarrassed by Washington lawyer Miguel Estrada bringing into the public domain the fact that Article 239 of the Honduran Constitution insists that any president proposing the permissibility of re-election (as Zelaya did) “shall cease forthwith” in his office; and that Article 4 defines such an “infraction” as treason.

If the Congress and Supreme Court had not deposed Zelaya they would have been accessories to treason. They tell me Barack Obama was a lawyer. They also told us he was a democrat. Yet the Honduran crisis is a direct confrontation between Jeffersonian and Bolivarian principles, in which the President of the United States has chosen the Bolivarian – more bluntly, the Marxist – option. Madness, from an American perspective; but it casts an interesting light on some of the stronger allegations that were made against Obama during the presidential election. Three and a half more years to go – this could get very interesting.

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