Jim DeMint: Obama’s Honduras Policy a “mistake in search of a rationale” – Updated
BySenator Jim DeMint travelled to Honduras last week, much to the chagrin of Democrats. His op-ed in The Wall Street Journal slams President Obama’s Honduras policy, which is indefensible.
As all strong democracies do after cleansing themselves of usurpers, Honduras has moved on.
The presidential election is on schedule for Nov. 29. Under Honduras’s one-term-limit, Mr. Zelaya could not have sought re-election anyway. Current President Roberto Micheletti—who was installed after Mr. Zelaya’s removal, per the Honduran Constitution—is not on the ballot either. The presidential candidates were nominated in primary elections almost a year ago, and all of them—including Mr. Zelaya’s former vice president—expect the elections to be free, fair and transparent, as has every Honduran election for a generation.
Indeed, the desire to move beyond the Zelaya era was almost universal in our meetings. Almost.
In a day packed with meetings, we met only one person in Honduras who opposed Mr. Zelaya’s ouster, who wishes his return, and who mystifyingly rejects the legitimacy of the November elections: U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens.
When I asked Ambassador Llorens why the U.S. government insists on labeling what appears to the entire country to be the constitutional removal of Mr. Zelaya a “coup,” he urged me to read the legal opinion drafted by the State Department’s top lawyer, Harold Koh. As it happens, I have asked to see Mr. Koh’s report before and since my trip, but all requests to publicly disclose it have been denied.
On the other hand, the only thorough examination of the facts to date—conducted by a senior analyst at the Law Library of Congress—confirms the legality and constitutionality of Mr. Zelaya’s ouster. (It’s on the Internet here .)
Unlike the Obama administration’s snap decision after June 28, the Law Library report is grounded in the facts of the case and the intricacies of Honduran constitutional law. So persuasive is the report that after its release, the New Republic’s James Kirchick concluded in an Oct. 3 article that President Obama’s hastily decided Honduras policy is now “a mistake in search of a rationale.”
The Hondurans I met agree. All everyone seemed to want was a chance to make their case, or at least an independent review of the facts.
So far, the Obama administration has ignored these requests and instead has repeatedly doubled down. It’s revoked the U.S. travel visas of President Micheletti, his government and private citizens, and refuses to talk to the government in Tegucigalpa. It’s frozen desperately needed financial assistance to one of the poorest and friendliest U.S. allies in the region. It won’t release the legal basis for its insistence on Mr. Zelaya’s restoration to power. Nor has it explained why it’s setting aside America’s longstanding policy of supporting free elections to settle these kinds of disputes. [...]
It would be nice to hear a simple “We were wrong and we apologize” from the administration. But don’t hold your breath waiting for a statement like that from Team Obama.
Update: Andy McCarthy notes the stonewalling from the most “transparent administration in history.” And what’s up with the republicans in the Senate who allowed the likes of Harold Koh and Eric Holder to sail through the nomination process.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Yeah, I remember the meeting Obama went to very early in his presidency and Chavez approached him with a book to give him. It’s not as if Obama reacted to him with dislike, he reacted in the way so as Chavez would not out him for a fellow despot. Birds of a feather……Honduras is not surprising, it could go further by allowing Chavez helping Ortega invade, but just wait, I predict China will make a run on Taiwan in the next 24 months and Obama won’t lift a finger. Using our monetary debt to them as silent leverage, an ideologically friendly United States administration; China’s leaders know it will never get any easier for them. I hope I’m very wrong.