NEOAVATARA

Honduras has had a difficult year.  After illegal actions of its former leftist president, Manuel Zelaya, the remainder of the Honduran government ‘ousted’ Zelaya.  The Obama Administration has been harsher on the surviving Honduran government than they have been on North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela put together.

In a bid to placate the international community, the interim president stepped down and allowed for elections last month.  In what must be called a rousing success, turnout exceeded 60%.  It produced a clear winner, conservative rancher Porfirio Lobo Sosa, sweeping out the liberal government of both Zelaya and interim caretaker president Roberto Micheletti.  International poll workers said that there was no significant fraud.

And yet, the Obama administration is still reluctant to accept the vote.

Really.

The U.S. State Department says Sunday’s presidential election in Honduras was a significant, but insufficient step, to end to political crisis that began there in June with the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya. U.S. officials are stopping short of recognizing opposition candidate Porfirio Lobo as the country’s next president.

The State Department says the Honduran election met international standards for fairness and transparency and it has commended Porfirio Lobo for what it termed an “ample victory”.

But at the same time, it stopped short of formally recognizing Lobo as the country’s next president and says Honduras must still take steps toward political reconciliation before it can emerge from the isolation brought by the June 28 ouster of President Zelaya.

The U.S. response to the Honduran vote came Monday from Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Arturo Valenzuela. The Chilean-born U.S. diplomat said the voting was a significant step, yet only a step, in Honduras’ return to full democracy after the coup d’etat that drove Mr. Zelaya from office.

This is absurdity.  Obama is willing to accept Ahmadinejad, who was clearly the victor in a fraudulent election in Iran, even after his supporters and the military beat, kicked, and killed the opposition.  But in Honduras, where they admit there were fair and free elections, he is not willing to accept the results?

The Obama Administration has been on the wrong side of this issue from the beginning.  Senator Jim DeMint had stopped Obama appointees from getting confirmation votes in protest over Obama’s decision to sanction Honduras, even after the Law Library of Congress confirmed the legality of Zelaya’s removal from office.   Now, after 60% of the Hondurans themselves have decided the course of their nation, the Obama Administration has the arrogance to tell them how they should rule their own country?

The arrogance will cost the U.S. standing in Central America. They have allowed themselves to be aligned with leftists such as Hugo Chavez, who will not accept the vote regardless of the legality and results.   Instead of allowing for public determination of government leaders, Obama and the White House are concerned about their own world view, despite the fact that the Hondurans followed their laws in ousting Zelaya.

This is the kind of arrogance that liberals accused George W. Bush of.  And yet, here we hear silence.