Honduras Update (and Idiot of the Week)

The Wall Street Journal has been identified over the past week as a relatively sympathetic reporter on the Honduran upheaval. Take that into account when reading the financial paper's ambivalent report about apparent censorship of the media since the golpe. It seems that the new regime may be little better than the old regime in, say, Iran, when it comes to letting the people see what the world's reporting about their country.

Meanwhile, it looks like Senior Zelaya did not fulfill his vow to return to Honduras today. He's probably up against the hard fact that no number of mere observers, no matter how prestigious, could stop him from being arrested by the Micheletti regime unless they were prepared to shoot their way free. Most likely, unless the UN is willing to impose major sanctions that would cripple the country, Zelaya won't see his homeland again for a very long time.

As for the Idiot of the Week, let me suggest that it is Senator Jim De Mint, a Republican from South Carolina, who to my knowledge may be the first U.S. legislator to endorse the golpe. He does so on the premise that Zelaya was a "Chavez-style dictator." This may be an accurate statement to the extent that a "Chavez-style dictator" is merely someone who seems like a dictator to certain aggrieved parties, or at least shows some alarming tendencies. But to style someone a "dictator" who had to scrape together a referendum without the support of his country's courts or military, only to be booted out of the country before it could take place, is idiotic. Why am I surprised neither by this talk coming from a Republican, nor by it coming from a South Carolina Republican?