By Charles Benninghoff

Los Angeles (July 1, 2009)  -  A funny thing happened on the way to the forum of world opinion for B. H. Obama in the past ten days.  The voters of the USA were afforded a clear look at his formerly obscure foreign policy objectives.  The masses around the world seeking freedom learned, also, about B. H.'s lack of devotion to liberty.  Many would surmise, from the lessons learned, in fact, that B. H. is sternly opposed to liberty both foreign and domestic.

Starting out with the convulsions in Iran, Mr. Obama first stated that he was not going to meddle in the internal affairs of that country.  Then, last Monday he stated that the the rapacious behavior of the mullahs was unacceptable.  How many Iranian lives could have been saved had he originally stated this?  While the multitudes of freedom-seekers were thronging the streets of Tehran, and elsewhere, in the Islamic Republic, Mr. Obama stood idly by and withheld both comment and encouragement.  As a result, the mullahs were able to use extreme violence against the demonstrators including rape and murder.

Compare that with B. H.'s treatment of law-abiding Honduras.  In that country, the constitution forbids any president from having more than a single four-year term in office.  The former president, Sr. José Manuel "Mel" ZelayaRosales, was ousted in a thoroughly democratic procedure by the country's legislative, judicial and military branches.  Yet, Obama to this day is siding with a would-be dictator and impugning the good and honorable Honduran people.

Examining the events of the past ten days in Honduras is important.  Mr. Zelaya first started out by seeking a non-binding countrywide referendum as to whether the country wanted him to have more than one term in office.  Problem was, such a referendum was illegal in Honduras.  Thus, the legislature - fearing a Hugo Chavez-type president-for-life ploy by Zelaya - asked that country's Supreme Court whether Zelaya should be removed from office for braking Honduran law.  The Justices, after due consideration, decided that Zelaya must be removed from office for committing the equivalent to a felony violation of its constitution.  The Justices then ordered the military to seize Zelaya and escort him from the country after having decided that he was no longer fit to serve as president.

This entire procedure was taken according to Honduran constitutional and statutory law. 

According to the Wall Street JournalHugo Chávez, who Mr. Zelaya is in close concert with, in 2004 packed the Venezuelan Supreme Court with 32 justices from 20. Any judge who rules against Chavez' interests can be fired. He made the electoral tribunal that oversees elections his own political tool, denying opposition requests to inspect voter rolls and oversee vote counts. The once politically independent oil company now hires only Chávez allies, and independent television stations have had their licenses revoked.

Mr. Chávez has also exported this brand of president-for-life dictatorship throughout the region. He's succeeded to varying degrees in Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina and Nicaragua, where his allies have stretched the law and tried to dominate the media and the courts. Mexico escaped in 2006 when Felipe Calderón linked his leftwing opponent to chavismo and barely won the presidency.

WSJ continued the analysis stating that in Honduras Mr. Chávez funneled Venezuelan oil money to help Mr. Zelaya win in 2005, and Mr. Zelaya has veered increasingly socialistic and anti-American in his four-year term. The Honduran constitution limits presidents to a single term, which is scheduled to end in January. Mr. Zelaya was using the extralegal referendum as an act of political intimidation to force the Honduran Congress to allow a rewrite of the constitution so he could retain power. The opposition had pledged to boycott the vote, which meant that Mr. Zelaya would have won by a landslide.

Such populist intimidation has worked elsewhere in the region, and Hondurans are understandably afraid that, backed by Chávez agents and money, it could lead to similar antidemocratic subversion there. In Tegucigalpa yesterday, thousands demonstrated against Mr. Zelaya, and new deputy foreign minister Marta Lorena Casco told the crowd that "Chávez consumed Venezuela, then Bolivia, after that Ecuador and Nicaragua, but in Honduras that didn't happen."

How could our president ally himself with Chávez and against democratic forces inside Honduras?  Some would opine that Obama's support of dictatorships such as the mullahs in Iran, Chávez in Venezuela and, now, Zelaya in Honduras is a clear and dramatic exhibition that Obama himself favors dictatorship - perhaps, dictatorship of the proletariat.