It is hilarious that you see the same lefties who were blasting the Busheviks for their clear violations of the Constitution contort themselves to excuse Zelaya’s violations of the Honduran constitution because, well, because Zelaya was best buds and pals with Hugo Chavez so that must make him a good guy, huh? Makes you wonder if they were just playing partisan politics during the Bush years rather than having any real regard for the US Constitution…
As noted by several posts at Why Now, Zelaya was flown out of the country by the military immediately after the Supreme Court ordered his arrest for violating Article 239 of the Honduran Constitution. The military says they flew him out of the country rather than arrest him because they were afraid he was going to try to get his supporters to rescue him if they arrested him, resulting in bloodshed. Undoubtedly the military's act was illegal -- they only had legal authority to arrest him for refusing to leave the Executive Mansion after removing himself from office via Article 239, not to kidnap him and fly him out of the country -- but a "coup"?! Nonsense. Utter nonsense. If it were a coup, the military would be in charge. Reality is that they aren't -- the Vice President took charge as required by the Honduran Constitution, and constitutional rule continues in Honduras.
My take on it: The loony lefties defending Zelaya are hypocrites and morons, no different from the right-wingers who defended Bush. Zelaya was a rich boy who decided he wanted to be President and took Bush's dictum of "life would be easier if this were a dictatorship" seriously. Pal'ing around with Hugo Chavez doesn't make him somehow a "hero of the people", and blasting Honduras for taking their Constitution seriously and calling a legal removal of their President for violating their Constitution a "coup" just shows the intellectual bankruptcy of far too many on the loony left.
-- Badtux the Constitutional Penguin
Dear Flipper Feet -
ReplyDeleteI am not familiar with the specific provisions of the Honduran Constitution. But I don't know of ANY Constitution that provides for replacing the chief executive at militaty gunpoint.
El Presidente may have been a shmuck, but what happened WAS a coup. (If it waddles like a penguin and snarks like a penguin, it's a penguin. Call it an eagle if you like, it's still a penguin.) As long as free & fair elections are possible, he can be removed by election. If he broke the law, there is a branch of government empowered to try him in court.
So Little Rock 1957 was a military coup? The military enforcing a Supreme Court order IS NOT A COUP. Period. When the 101st Airborne enforced the orders of the U.S. Supreme Court and escorted those little black children into Little Rock High School, that was NOT a military coup.
ReplyDeleteIn the case of Honduras, the Honduran Supreme Court ordered the President of Honduras removed from office and arrested for violating the most inviolate article of the Honduran Constitution: the one that says that if the President even PROPOSES a second term, even THINKS about it, he is automatically removed from office and stripped of his Honduran citizenship for the next ten years. They do NOT want strong man rule in Honduras again. It could not be a coup because ZELAYA WAS NO LONGER PRESIDENT OF HONDURAS AT THE TIME HE WAS ARRESTED BY THE MILITARY AND DEPORTED. He wasn't even a CITIZEN OF HONDURAS at that time, he had automatically stripped himself of that citizenship for the next ten years the moment he proposed his little referendum, and thus it was quite permissible to deport him as an illegal alien.
If it was a military coup, WHY IS THE MILITARY NOT RUNNING HONDURAS RIGHT NOW? Why is there a CIVILIAN government running Honduras right now, instead of a junta of generals? If removal of a trespasser from the White House in order to allow the real President to take office is a coup, what was Little Rock 1957? A coup? GAH!
- Badtux the Constitutional Penguin
The illegality is rooted in the fact that the army sent away Mr. Zelaya to Costa Rica´s Oscar Arias, a Nobel Prize winner, instead of exposing him to the natural nervousness provoked by the circumstances.
ReplyDeleteIt is really not meant as an excuse but the de-facto truth is that in the future many of those who could find themselves in a predicament similar to that of Zelaya would most probably go down or their knees begging for a little “Honduran coup” treatment.