Honduras

The Heritage Foundation has the best summary of the "Coup" in Honduras:

On June 28, the Congress and Supreme Court of Honduras ,with the assistance of the Honduran Armed Forces, physically removed President Manuel Zelaya from his residence and expelled him from the country. The new Honduran government states President Zelaya’s removal from office was the result of legal orders issued by its supreme court. In a matter of hours, a new government was sworn in. It promises, unlike Zelaya, to abide by the Constitution, move ahead with national elections, and respect basic rights and liberties. Civilian, not military, leaders have taken charge.

From everything I have read, President Zelaya was trying to sidestep the law in Honduras in order to install himself as a dictator similar to Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. The Honduran Supreme Court, Congress, the national prosecutor, major churches, businesses, and members of President Zelaya's party decided they were not going to allow this to happen. The government (not a fringe military general) seized Zelaya, placed him on an airplane, and sent him to Costa Rica. They then voted on, and installed an interim government until the next elections are held. The interim President, Roberto Micheletti, is from Zelaya's own political party. Coup's are typically power grabs by a party that is out of power. President Micheletti has agreed to serve until the elections in November and promises to step down after that.

As Glenn Garvin points out in the Miami Herald,"[t]he Honduran army clearly did not act on its own when it arrested Zelaya and sent him packing. The supreme court says the generals acted on its orders, and almost every Honduran politician of any note -- regardless of party -- has voiced approval." Outside of Honduras, the actions of the Honduran government have been met with swift criticism.


Chavez has threatened an armed invasion of Honduras if the country swears into office any President other than Manuel Zelaya. Secretary of State Clinton has said the action of Honduras' government should be condemned by all. President Obama has threatened to withhold military aid to Honduras unless they return Zelaya to power.

This appears to be an internal matter to me. It is not a military coup, but appears to be the Honduran government acting with it's power, and using the military to enforce the laws of the land. I think there are some parallels between the actions taken by their government and the actions we would take if we impeached a President here in the U.S. It is very hard to predict how this will play out. While President Obama decided not to meddle in Iran, he has quickly aligned himself with Chavez and the Castro brothers over Honduras. I do not understand why the President would pick Honduras to try and exert influence, and I don't know why he would decide to join the Chavez / Castro team. However, he has. And in so doing, he has placed the United States in a loose - loose situation. As the Heritage Foundation explains:


If Zelaya is returned, he will hail Chávez, Castro, etc. as the true saviors of his regime, with a grudging recognition to the U.S. Zelaya will be granted a six month opportunity to foster polarization, pillory the democratic opposition, and destroy as much of the independent institutions of his country as possible. If the new government resists the OAS resolution, Chávez and company will undoubtedly act, saying their interventions (whether diplomatic, economic, or even military) in Honduras are being done to uphold an OAS mandate and defend democracy. Actions the U.S. clearly supports.


Neither of these situations is good for the country. Red State is asking it's readers to contact their Representatives and ask they support President Roberto Micheletti. There is a chance some Representatives may want to redeem themselvs after Friday's vote. I would encourage you to follow the Red State link. If your representative or senator is on the foreign relations committee, give them a call and tell them to take a deep breath, then back off and let the government of Honduras sort these things out.

Gore-Obama ’08 ?

Every now and then I come across an article that wipes everything else I wanted to write about off the table. In this case, it was an article from Time Magazine on Wednesday. Is Al Gore the Answer? by Joe Klein was too good to pass up. In his article, Mr. Klein makes the argument that with Obama and Clinton going at each other "with chainsaws" the Democratic Party may need a new hope. In his words, "…I'm rather embarrassed to admit that I'm slouching toward, well, a theory: if this race continues to slide downhill, the answer to the Democratic Party's dilemma may turn out to be Al Gore."

In the remainder of the article, Mr. Klein outlines a scenario where Al Gore could be offered the nomination at the convention if the super delegates don't give it to Obama or Clinton on the first run. Mr. Klein accepts how improbable this scenario is. For example, Obama would have to go along with it, and bring his delegates with him. With the bad blood between the Clintons and the Gores, I think a Gore – Clinton ticket is even further off in fairy land than a Gore – Obama ticket. Mr. Klein says this dream ticket may be the only way for the DNC to salvage what should have been an easy victory this year.

Before I point out the problems with this scenario, I want to say that Gore getting the nomination is my dream as well. I think any ticket with the ex-VP as a Presidential candidate is easier to defeat than one with Obama or Clinton. First, there is no question that race has now been injected into this campaign. The Democratic party has long claimed it is more in touch with minorities than the Republican party. What happens if the elders of the DNC decide the only way to salvage a win is to knock the first serious female candidate and the first serious black candidate out so they can put a white male in the race? There are already threats of rioting if Obama doesn't get the nomination. If Obama and Clinton were both cast aside for Gore, I think there would be real hell to pay.

Second, I believe most people misunderstand the nature of Mr. Gore's popularity. Sure there are plenty of environmentalists that think he is the second coming. However, most Democratic politicians like Gore right now because he isn't a threat. If he suddenly looks like he could be given the nomination, I think many high ranking Democrats would turn against him. The Clintons would surely attack him, and I feel confident Rev. Wright and his supporters would be very unhappy.

Finally, I would love a Gore nomination for one more reason. If Gore was to run, McCain and many Republicans (and possibly Hillary Clinton) would start pointing to Gore's inconsistencies on Global Warming over the years. Many of the little white lies he told in An Inconvenient Truth would be pointed out. He may continue to claim they were exaggerations used to make a point, but after Mrs. Clintons troubles with her memory and Kosovo, I don't think she would allow that to go unchallenged.

Let Gore get the nomination, I have popcorn and beer ready to watch the fireworks.

Quick Notes – Presidential Politics and Others…

Welcome to another edition of Quick Notes. I am enjoying the "Quick Notes" part of this blog more and more. I find many of you like to comment on the items I probably wouldn't have written a full post about. Keeping that in mind, here are three more topics for your review:

Mitt Romney. Mitt has released his delegates and now endorses McCain. I hate to hear this for a few reasons. First, I am still undecided with regards to McCain. Romney is trying to do the best thing for his party, and what he believes is the best thing for his country. Second, I just started Hugh Hewitt's A Mormon in the White House, and I am pretty sure that Romney won't be our nominee even at a brokered convention this time around. However, keep an eye on him. If he takes the right job between now and 2012, he might be a very strong candidate in the next race. I will be watching him…

The Clintons. While discussing politics the other day with my wife, an odd thought occurred to me. Chelsea Clinton is 29 years old. If her mom should win this election, and become a two term president, guess who is constitutionally eligible to run in the election after that. You got it. We could have 24 years of Clintons instead of 16.

In Other News… The Washington Post has reported that a "long range Russian bomber" buzzed the U.S.S Nimitz. A second bomber circled 50 miles away. The Nimitz scrambled fighters to intercept the Russian bombers. This is one more thing to keep in mind when picking a presidential candidate this season. One more thing to remind us that the Presidential Race isn't the only thing going on in the world.

Super Tuesday: Lessons Learned

I apologize ahead of time is this post becomes a little disjointed. I am writing this a little after 12 AM after watching as much Super Tuesday coverage as I can take. However, I think a few important points can be taken from today:

1. Things are as confusing in both parties now as they were on Monday. On the Democratic side, Obama has picked up four or five more states than Hillary. This is huge for Obama, but in the long run, it means they are still neck and neck. On the Republican side, things aren't as clear cut as the media seems to think it is (at least it isn't at 12 AM). As of right now, McCain has had eight states called for him, Romney has had six called for him, and Huckabee has had five called for him. This will look a little different in the morning (California is still up in the air, and there is a chance Romney may pick up one or two more states). Both Huckabee and Romeny have already said they are still in it. There is very little chance that either of these two will drop out until some time after Thursday and CPAC.
2. McCain supporters should stop saying that their man has character. While it looks like the back room tricks from West Virginia were entirely legal, it has left a bad taste in many peoples mouth. It shows that McCain and Huckabee are more interested in teaming up on Romney. It also shows that McCain has no intention of changing the way things run in Washington. Buy throwing his supporters over to Huckabee after Romney won the first vote, McCain shows that he is a skilled politician, and fits the stereotype of the back room, cigar smoking politician many people in both parties associate with Washington.
3. Voters in states that haven't voted, are still going to influence the election. With all the jockeying of positions of different primaries, and will both parties penalizing states for moving their primaries, many thought the candidate would be set after tonight. In my opinion, we are still a long ways away from either party having a clear cut candidate. What doest that mean for my readers in states that haven't voted yet? Get out an vote!

Senate Reaches New Low

The actions by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, John Kerry, Presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama, and other Democratic Senators over the last 24 hours have reached a new low point for American politics. These 40 Democratic Senators, who suddenly develop outrage whenever their patriotism is questioned, have attacked Rush Limbaughs “unpatriotic and indefensible comments”. On the Senate floor, they disparaged Rush, and impugned his reputation. Remember, Rush Limbaugh is a private citizen. He is not an elected official. Rush would not be able to say the same thing about these Senators in Senate chambers as they said about him.

Agree with Rush Limbaugh or disagree with him, if you don’t like what he says, don’t listen. I disagree with the New York Times for running the Moveon.org ad. Therefore, I have no intention of buying the New York Times. Rush is a citizen of the United States. The U.S. Constitution, Amendment number One, which most liberals claim to cherish, guarantees Rush the ability to say whatever he wants on his own radio station. People can choose to listen to what he says or not.

As I said in a previous post, no one who objectively listens to the segment that Rush has been miss-quoted from can possibly come away with the impression that he was talking about soldiers who served in Iraq. There were stories about phony soldiers in other news outlets leading up to Rush’s comments. Senator Reid, Senator Clinton, and the other signatories of the letter to Mark Mays of Clear Channel or either not doing their homework, or are intentionally misleading the public. Either way, they have now publically embarrassed themselves and the U.S. Senate.

If we wish to be charitable and grant they haven’t done their homework, then all 40 members who signed this letter should resign from office in disgrace. To think that a U.S. Senator would ask a media agency to, “…publicly repudiate these comments…,” without doing his or her homework is beyond belief. This action comes very close to censoring a media outlet. Surely a Senator would do his homework before embarking on such a course. If he or she hasn’t, the Senator should be asked to leave office.

If, as is more likely, these 40 Democratic Senators are intentionally misleading the public, we should still demand they resign. A U.S. Senator is a public servant. Many Senators (both Republican and Democratic) have forgotten that. If they are going to go to the floor of the U.S. Senate and intentionally lie as a matter of cheap theatrics, we don’t need them in office. Surely intelligent adults from both sides of the political spectrum can agree that this debate was a colossal waste of time and public money. Do the Democrats who control the Senate believe this is the most pressing issue of the day?

Either these 40 Senators are too lazy to seek the truth in this matter, or they prefer to intentionally mislead the public with regards to Rush. These Senators owe Rush a formal apology from the floor of the Senate. Of course, that would require these Senators have some sort of honor. I seriously question that after seeing this letter.

The Evil we face in Iraq

Rush Limbaugh and Bill Bennett have both talked about a story from Michael Yon's blog over the last couple of days. On Mr. Yon's blog, he lists a few other news sources that have run with the story. I was unable to find any of the big named media groups (except Fox News) on his list. This story needs to be reported and repeated until every American can repeat it word for word. Here is the part everyone is talking about:

The official reported that on a couple of occasions in Baqubah, al Qaeda invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance, the family had a boy, he said, who was about 11 years old. As LT David Wallach interpreted the man's words, I saw Wallach go blank and silent. He stopped interpreting for a moment. I asked Wallach, "What did he say?" Wallach said that at these luncheons, the families were sat down to eat. And then their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served the boy to his family.

We are currently engaged in a war with enemies who are as evil as anything we have ever faced. Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Hamas are all cut from the same cloth that made the Nazis and S. S. of World War II. Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden are kindred spirits cut from the same cloth. Democrats and some Republicans have been playing at being at war. It is time for America to realize exactly what it is up against.

This morning the New York Daily News ran an editorial by Senator Robert Byrd and Senator Hillary Clinton. The editorial is a great example of 9/10 thinking. I think it says a lot about a Presidential Candidate when she writes and editorial demanding we withdrawal from Iraq when there are atrocities like the one above being committed by our enemies. It says a lot about Mrs. Clinton that she would write an op-ed piece and share the byline with a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan. Mrs. Clinton and every Presidential candidate should proclaim that the United States will not allow this type of evil to attack Democracies.

This morning, after repeating the story of these families, Bill Bennett said that we must stay in Iraq even if we lose ten times as many soldiers as we have lost. I agree. We must commit this country to winning Iraq as if our own continuation depended on it. Democracies must protect other Democracies. As Dr. Bennett said, we cannot allow people like this to occupy the same planet as we do. Democracies must also protect mankind from the kind of evil that would commit this evil against another person. If the full plight of the Jewish people had been known during WW II, no one would have argued to withdraw from the War. How can we as sane people discuss withdrawing from this one, knowing what Al-Queda is likely to do when we leave?