Times Again Covers for Left-Wing Honduran Authoritarian Manuel Zelaya, Ally of Hugo Chavez
Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, a leftist ally of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, was famously forced out of the country in his pajamas by the army in June, in response to his extra-legal efforts to lift presidential term limits. The Honduran Supreme Court and Congress declared his actions unconstitutional. When the army refused to organize the vote, Zelaya fired the commander of the armed forces, Gen. Romeo Vasquez. (The Supreme Court reinstated him.)
Absolutely none of this history appeared in Sunday's story by Marc Lacey, "Latin America Still Divided Over a Coup in Honduras."
No longer is the ousted Honduran president hiding out in an embassy compound, and no longer is the man who replaced him thumbing his nose at the world.
Lacey explained the matter through the prism of the Honduran situation being a burden on the "Obama administration's goals in the region."
Isolated from its neighbors and politically divided internally, Honduras has not yet moved beyond the tumult of last June, when President Manuel Zelaya was forcibly removed by soldiers at the behest of the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court and then illegally bundled out of the country in his nightclothes.
As the world branded Mr. Zelaya's ouster a coup, the Honduran political establishment rallied around a new leader, Roberto Micheletti. His message to the United States and other countries that insisted that Mr. Zelaya be restored to power was a simple one: Mind your own business.
The Times was very bad at explaining what actually happened in Honduras back in June, preferring to protect the leftist Zelaya and leaving out details of the growing authoritarianism that caused the Supreme Court and the Honduran Congress to oust him in the first place. Zelaya has also displayed an interesting line in anti-Jewish paranoia that hasn't gotten much press coverage.
You can follow Times Watch on Twitter.
