Not All Presidential Ousters Are Made Equal

Back from a week of dodging thunderstorms up in Northeast Florida (meanwhile, the weather in South Florida made a turn for the better). Just my luck. Nevertheless, it was good to do a little body surfing in the nice 4-5 foot swells (sorry, I don't have any pictures).

I left last week with a note on the situation in Honduras, and I return with another one. Andres Oppenheimer opined early last week about how the U.S. made the right decision by not supporting the ouster of Zelaya in Honduras. I understand the general sentiment, but the problem I have with it is this: the ouster was driven by Zelaya's thoroughly un-democratic actions. I think responsible people can make a distinction between what happened in Honduras and what's occurred in places such as Venezuela, for example. Perhaps there was a better way of deposing Zelaya. But if the goal of the overthrow in Honduras was to re-establish a semblance of democracy, shouldn't that also be noted and supported by the U.S. and other democracy-supporting states?

This was Oppenheimer's only flaw in what was a dead-on article which rightly took the OAS to task for its hypocrisy and double-standards.