Anti-Constitutional Enthusiasm of the American Left
For eight long years, while George W. Bush undermined and ignored the US Constitution, the American Left rent its garments and bewailed every insult to that sacred document, but not all constitutions are created equal, and when Manuel Zelaya effectively abrogated the Constitution of Honduras by leading a mob to seize a pile of ballots for his quasi-referendum which the Supreme Court, Congress, Attorney General, and Federal Election Commission of Honduras had declared illegal, then the acting government of Honduras became whatever mob Zelaya could whistle up, and since he controlled the National Police and ignored court orders and legislation at his pleasure, it's hard to see how any Honduran institution except the army could have removed him from the Presidential Palace in Tegucigalpa, but...
For the American Left, he was still the "democratically elected President of Honduras," even when Honduras had ceased to be a democracy where anything as refined as an election actually mattered, and now it was nothing but a mob and an army.
Methinks this is an oversimplified account of events. Having said that, it is unclear to me exactly what the pertinent facts are or were leading up to the coup and thus being precise about who is right and who is wrong is very difficult to judge.
August 13, 2009 5:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
For those of you who just fell off a turnip truck, there's a thread a mile long under my previous diary about Zelaya, where several intelligent and well-informed commenters contributed to this stripped-down version of only one aspect of the crisis in Honduras, a stripped-down version with which none of them might agree, but as far as I can tell, nothing in this one-sentence diary is fatally compromised by any of their many thoughtful observations on the previous thread.
August 13, 2009 7:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
The UN, the EU and the OAS are now members of the American left, when did this happen?
August 13, 2009 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's a bit of a logical fallacy there. "The American Left thinks x" does not mean "only the American Left thinks x."
August 13, 2009 6:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is no fallacy in pointing out the fact that, for all intents and purposes, the rest of the world takes the same position as those whom Rushabaga is taking a slap at in his stripped down version of reality in the Honduras situation.
August 14, 2009 10:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
I read some of your other posts (like Crowley could sue Obama for defamation of character) and man you have way too much time on your hands.
August 13, 2009 8:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yuk yuk yuk!
August 13, 2009 8:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
But what the heck! Good resolutions notwithstanding, I might as well reply to the moron biglith.
I never claimed Crowley could sue Obama, but instead cited Jonathan Turley's article suggesting that Crowley might have a case for defamation against Gates.
And here's another clue for you, biglith...
The President of the United States is immune to civil suits based on any action he performs as President, and that includes appearances at press conferences like the one where Obama called the Cambridge police "stupid."
For example, in Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681, 117 S.Ct. 1636, 137 L.Ed.2d 945 (1997) the Supreme Court allowed Paula Jones' suit against Bill Clinton to proceed specifically because it was based on shtupping her before he was President, and also because shtupping is "unrelated to official duties."
Crowley would have had an interesting case if Obama had shtupped him, because in Clinton v. Jones the Court had two ways to allow the suit to go forward, based on priority in time to assuming the office of the Presidency, and unrelatedness to official duties, although either basis would have probably sufficed.
Even then, Crowly would have had to show that getting shtupped by the President had inflicted actual harm upon him, or that Obama had shtupped him without his permission.
August 13, 2009 9:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
How about shtupping while inebriated? Did the High Court say anything about that?
August 13, 2009 9:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
They were 9-0 for.
August 14, 2009 4:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey,hey: "Ridgepole of the Bailey" was one of my favorite PBS shows. This ought to be fun - when KGB logs on, it will get funner.
Here's a constitutional tid-bit. Mel Zelaya's Vice President was Elvin Santos. Santos had to resign in order to be the Liberal Party's candidate for the presidency in the up and comming elections. But wait...what about Article 239 of the Honduran Constitution - one of the six "stone" articles that can't be changed?
Or maybe the prohibition isn't written in stone at all? Yikes, 239 was changed in 1998 (decreto 245-98). The article is about who could run for president, and the 1998 modification to the unmodifyable article added the "Vice President" to the list of those who couldn't run. Then in 2002, congress made three changes to the "stone" article 240, which then allowed the President of Congress to run for President of the Republic. 240 prohibited this before the 2002 modifications.
After the 1998 change to 239, the article read:
"The citizen who has held executive power cannot be President or Vice President of the Republic. Anyone who breaks this clause or proposes its reform, or supports it directly or indirectly, ceases immediately to exercise their respective positions, and will remain unable to hold public office for 10 years."
For this reason the Honduran Supreme Election Council voted against Elvin Santos as the legal candidate of the Liberal Party in August, 2008.
So the Public Prosecutor in Defense of the Constitution challenged the changes cited above, and the Supreme Court found the changes to be unconstitutional (as we would expect) in November of of 2008. Thus Santos was cleared to run for president. But the important thing here is that the Supreme Court "wrote that it wasn't a crime for Congress to try and reform articles 239 and 240, but it was based on an erroneous belief."
http://hondurascoup2009.blogspot.com/2009/08/modifying-articles-239-and-240-or-how.html
I recommend reading the whole link, because there's more intriguing information on the political aspects of Santos' candidacy. A good insight into the wild and crazy world of Honduran politics.
Incidentally, Elvin Santos recently rejected the coup and tried to shift his campaign to the popular movements, and he was booed off the stage at his first appearance.
August 13, 2009 8:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ther Reagan-era Deputy Ambassador to the UN Jose Sorzano posted an editorial in La Tribuna on Sunday about...
For some strange reason, this exotic phenomenon only has a name in Latin America.
August 13, 2009 9:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Meanwhile, in American newspapers almost no accounts of Zelaya's exit have bothered to mention that he was unseated as "Presidente de la República" by the Honduran Congress...
August 13, 2009 9:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
In spite of so many expressions of support from here, there, and everywhere, Zelaya didn't exactly get a royal send-off from Mexico...
So Zelaya left Mexico in silence, with his tail between his legs...
Haharharhar!!!
August 13, 2009 10:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
But after further consideration, I think the story quoted in my previous comment is only worth one "Har!"
August 13, 2009 10:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Convert to "ja" - it's much more lenient.
But look, your blog is about the constitution. You know my position (I hope) and that is that the Honduran constitution is just a convenient pretext for political movidas - well, I'll soften that a bit...there may be some warm fuzzy notions about a constitutional republic, but it gets co-opted by the power struggles - which often reduce down to what till you can dip into.
So dissing Mel, or valorizing him, for that matter, is beside the point. Let's talk constitution here.
August 13, 2009 10:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
This goes around in circles...
At some point Mel has a mob and defies the Supreme Court, Congress, Attorney General, and FEC, so for me it's a straight-up choice between rule of law, however imperfect that law and legal apparatus may be, or mob rule.
But I have a deeper and more puzzling question which I'm about to dump at the bottom of the thread.
August 13, 2009 11:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK, I see what you're saying. I wanted to reduce it down myself by refusing to look at the confusing legal arguments and pass the whole thing off as purely political.
August 14, 2009 12:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
I actually with you that the legal arguments are relatively insignificant. All sorts of obscure laws are broken by everybody everywhere every day. The main question for me was... what comes next, after Zelaya defies the Supreme Couirt and all the rest of the legal apparatus?
Some commenters seem to assume that the election would proceed normally, and everything would relapse into the old familiar ruts... but with a President who isn't bound by any law or countervailing power. I can't believe it, and neither could most of the rest of the government of Honduras.
None of this means that I side with the cattle and lumber barons against the campesinos. But Zelaya isn't Morales or Lula da Silva, and neither of those guys had to overturn their respective constitutions to get where they were going.
August 14, 2009 1:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
This may surprise you, but Zelaya is now saying that he doesn't want to return to the presidency.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48078
(scroll down to bottom of this overly long story)
"On Wednesday, a spokesman for Zelaya, Arístides Mejía – one of his closest associates and a member of his negotiating committee – told the Tegucigalpa radio station HRN that the ousted leader "apparently has no personal desire to return to power."
"From what I have seen, President Zelaya himself has no personal wish to return. He has already governed, his term was almost over. What he is doing is trying to get the democratic order reestablished," said Mejía, adding that the two sides must sit down again to negotiate.
Mejía said Zelaya's interest in returning is more a product of "the pressure from the international community to restore the democratic order, than of the interest of Zelaya himself.""
Interesting if true. It's also reported in La Tribuna: http://www.latribuna.hn/web2.0/?p=29231
August 14, 2009 1:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Since there's not much chance of returning at this point, Zelaya might as well say whatever is most pleasing to the ears of his international sponsors, and this pious endorsement of restoring democracy fits the bill.
It's probably insignificant, too, that he's looking at some sort of warrant with Interpol (las ordenes de captura en su contra que ya tiene la policía internacional (Interpol)), issued by the golpistas, although the mechanics of it are fuzzy. Nobody recognizes their government, but maybe Interpol doesn't depend on recognition by anybody else to maintain their connection with whoever happens to be giving orders at the Palace of Justice in Tegucigalpa.
August 14, 2009 3:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is there a provision in the Honduran Constitution which allowed them to take this action --- like the provisions in our Constitution which set forth how an impeachment is to be conducted?
August 13, 2009 11:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, there is a procedue for impeachment, but it isn't exactly simple to explain exactly how it works, because the Honduran Constitution is constantly amended by Congress, with many, many qualifications attached to every article, but if you're really, really interested, the relevant article is 205, and here is part of the jungle which has grown up around it.
August 14, 2009 12:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, not so much interested in how it works as in whether it was -- reasonably-- followed.
August 14, 2009 12:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Supreme Court followed the procedure to the point of designating one justice to undertake the preliminary and intermediary phases of the case. Since Zelaya was deported, the process was never completed. In other words, Zelaya has not been tried and convicted of any crime.
August 14, 2009 1:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, there is. It is in Article 205 of the 1982 constitution, but it was modified in 2002. Rather than spelling it out here, you can read a detailed account here:
http://hondurascoup2009.blogspot.com/2009/08/immunity-impunity-impeachment-some.html
August 14, 2009 12:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you neoboho.
August 13, 2009 9:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're welcome. I read on your bio "are you familiar with the Haight Ashbury? Boy, am I. I lived on the southeast corner of Page and Schrader in '61 - '62, when it was still sort of an international community. Haight was lined with ethnic shops up and down - there was even a Carribean restaurant on the corner of Masonic. It was a great time to be alive in SF. Not that the freaks were all that bad...it was just all that dog dirt on the sidewalks.
August 13, 2009 9:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
While I was fact-fishing for two diaries about Honduras, I was sort of surprised to find out that Nicaragua is even poorer than Honduras, with only Haiti between them and the bottom of the scale in Latin America.
Why Nicaragua?
79% of Nicaraguans make less than $2 per day!
Why?
And this is after all sorts of "successes" by the Sandistas....
30 years and a lot of Sandista improvements, and still...
79% of Nicaraguans make less than $2 per day!
Why?
August 13, 2009 11:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seems the Nicaraguans can do more with less:
Life Expectancy (per wolfram Alpha):
Honduras 69.4
Nicaragua 71.5
August 14, 2009 12:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why?
You snagged me with that. But then I did a quick look at wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nicaragua#Economy
and decided that I didn't really need to look much further, as what I saw there made it pretty clear pretty quick that they've had a very long road to hoe....
stuff like economy was ravaged in the 1980s by the Contra War and,the US staged an economic blockade from 1985 onward and, since 1990 inflation has been reduced from 33,603% to 8% and foreign debt has been cut in half and In 2001, the global recession, combined with a series of bank failures, low coffee prices, and a drought, caused the economy to retract and Foreign private capital inflows topped $300 million in 1999 but, due to economic and political uncertainty, fell to less than $100 million in 2001. In the last 12 years tourism has grown 394%,[3] the rapid growth has led it to become Nicaragua's second largest source of foreign capital....
August 14, 2009 1:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree that there are plenty of factors to explain why Nicaragua is poor, but those same or similar factors operate all over Latin America.
So I'm not asking why Nicaragua or Honduras is poor, but why it is specifically those two countries, with very different political histories over the last 30 years, which are stuck at the bottom of that very deep barrel.
August 14, 2009 1:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
If I understand Rootie and Neo correctly there was an impeachment process which was legally started but rather than completing it Zelaya was --illegally or extra-legally -- deported.
August 14, 2009 7:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
The above is misplaced but since I'm here: which countries beside Nicaragua and Cuba are we conducting an economic blockade against?
August 14, 2009 7:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
True enthusiasm for constitutionalism would be supporting the unlawful removal from power of the elected president?
You can argue, with some merit, that the coup was justifiable (I will wait until the election the coup leaders are promising), but please do not be so disingenuous as to try pass it off as an unequivocally legal move.
(And, especially, avoid assertions about some huge insurmountable mob of supporters that only the military could hope to take on. There is not exactly much in evidence, the country pretty evenly divided.)
August 14, 2009 4:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Desidero apparently enjoys explaining what he actually asserted in his diaries to commenters like Karl, in words of one syllable, but I don't, and won't.
August 14, 2009 8:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, that is fine. I would not want to cut into your Googling time.
August 14, 2009 9:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
What's a "diary"? "diaries"?
August 14, 2009 10:52 AM | Reply | Permalink