Steady of heart, and stout of hand…

… absolutely does NOT describe the Obama Administration concerning Honduras. Other policies advocated by this administration, such as the stimulus package, can be attributed to a Keynesian-induced stupor, but to what can we attribute President Obama’s active denunciation of democratic forces in Hondruas?

As has been reported on these pages previously, the events that occurred in Honduras cannot be described as a coup.  It was in line with the Honduran constitution.

So the question is why is President  Obama continuing to support the expansion of Chavez-esque dictatorships throughout Latin America? Taken in conjunction with his de-funding of democratic forces across the globe, it seems like he is either attempting to curry favor with the street urchins of the world (i.e. Iran, Venezuela, et cetera) or returning to the Communist-apologia stance of “Okay, maybe the West has ‘political rights,’ but the East has ‘social rights’” (although in this case “East” would refer to any tin-pot dictator).

Either way, this does not bode well for the future of our foreign policy. This time, we are supporting the protesters (as opposed to our policy in Iran), but they’re not protesting a totalitarian government, but a democratic government who deposed of their last leader through democratic means to prevent the creation of a dictatorship. We’re allowing chaos to ensue which undermines the legitimacy of the government. Surprisingly or not, most Hondurans do not accept former President Zelaya’s claims as they understand that it was a legal removal of the president, not unknown in democracies.  Further, stability is absolutely essential for the democratic institutions in Honduras to take root and flourish, so President Obama is only further impairing Hondura’s democratic maturation.

It’s astonishing how fast things can change. In one year, we go from one extreme, of Wilsonianism wrapped in a conservative package in the form of democratic realism, to President Obama where democracy is off the list. Or in the words of Hillary Clinton responding to a question on how we can support re-admitting Cuba to the OAS (for after all, Cuba isn’t a democracy):

The United States, under the Obama administration, is committed to reengaging in Latin America, to working with all countries, and we have begun doing that. We believe that lifting people out of poverty in our hemisphere, narrowing the intolerable income gap that exists between the rich and the poor in our hemisphere, working for greater social inclusion, improved education and health care — these are our goals.

We’re back to a view where political rights aren’t that important, “human rights” are good too. The West can have its right to free speech, right to property, but the third-world can have its right to a job, right to food…; they’re equal; it doesn’t matter.

But then, one is reminded of Jeane Kirkpatrick’s retort to that formulation when she said it’s amazing how those who lack the freedom of speech, the freedom of worship, the freedom of assembly, and so on, also tend to lack food, shelter, and health…

Not such a bright future for American foreign policy.