Honduras: from objectivity to ridicule

Paraphrasing someone, the Honduras coup is so revealing of hypocrisy that if it had not existed it would have to be invented as a literary exercise. Another quick press review this morning while I am having my coffee guarantees to start my day with a smile.

Let start with a newspaper that knows where it stands, the WSJ. The editorial title "The Wages of Chavismo" is full of promise and the reader will not be disappointed. We might deplore that the WSJ is not willing to acknowledge the downright reality of the coup, no matter how justifiable they think the coup was, however some of the stuff shoudl give a few blabber mouths of the hemisphere pause. If you find this, followed by the catalogue to reind folks that Chaevz lives in a glass house:

Yet the events in Honduras also need to be understood in the context of Latin America's decade of chavismo. Venezuela's Hugo Chávez was democratically elected in 1998, but he has since used every lever of power, legal and extralegal, to subvert democracy.

You also find this:

We mention these not so small details because they are being overlooked as the world, including the U.S. President, denounces tiny Honduras in a way that it never has, say, Iran. President Obama is joining the U.N., Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez and other model democrats in demanding that Mr. Zelaya be allowed to return from exile and restored to power. Maybe it's time to sort the real from the phony Latin American democrats.

The New York Times gives us a more circumspect analysis in the hand of Simon Romero, probably one of the best summation to be found around, with the Editorial of the WaPo yesterday. I suppose that this is as much objectivity as we can expect right now. In addition Mr. Romero is proving to become a fine connoisseur of Latin American irony and sarcasm, at least as much as what we can expect a gringo to become:

Meanwhile, Mr. Chavez threats of belligerence in Central America led one opposition party here, Accion Democratica, to issue a statement on Monday that was full of irony: “Hugo Chavez has become the George Bush of Latin America.”

At any rate Mr. Romero is keen on observing that Obama might not be outflanking Chavez yet but he is not allowing himself to be cornered by Chavez, yet I will add.

And speaking of Chavez, as it is often the case lately, we get the ridicule of the day, his offering NOT to accompany the group to bring back Zelaya to Honduras. That is right, he said that he could be shot in Honduras and thus he regrets that he will not be accompanying Argentina's Cristina and Ecuador's Rafael as they try to restore Zelaya. But he will send his "canciller" Maduro. I suppose that neither Cristina nor Rafael are in any danger, no? Poor Chavez, he does not realize that at the same time he demonstrates two things, that he is a coward and that he is an arrogant creep by putting himself above any other LatAm president... Truth sometimes is stranger than fiction.....

But Chavez also brings us the obscene: he, the champion of lifting the "criminal" embargo to Cuba, is proposing to set an embargo to Honduras and he will start himself by stopping any oil export to Honduras. You have got to love the chutzpah of the guy, and be impressed by the jerks applauding such grandstanding. Unbelievable! That is what happens to you when you spend years surrounded by sycophants.

-The end-