What The Hell Just Happened In Honduras?

Al Giordano e-mails to defend himself:

Your reader making claims has the determinative fact wrong. I'd love this chance to briefly rebut it.

He writes:

"the Supreme Court and the Congress clearly affirmed that Zelaya’s attempt to change the constitution was unconstitutional, Zelaya went forward with his plans nevertheless."

That is demonstrably false. President Zelaya did not "go forward with his plans nonetheless." He respected the Supreme Court ruling against a *binding* referendum, and then changed it to a *nonbinding* referendum, on which the courts never made any ruling at all.

It was that *nonbinding* referendum that the coup plotters sought to preempt, timing the coup on the day of the election. The entire text of that nonbinding question was:

"Do you think that the November 2009 general elections should include a fourth ballot box in order to make a decision about the creation of a National Constitutional Assembly that would approve a new Constitution?"

And if they're so convinced that the Honduran people don't support the idea of reforming the constitution - as all true democracies allow - why then did they choose election day for the coup?

Your reader is suggesting that a people democratically choosing to reform their country's constitution is somehow undemocratic. That fails every reasonable test of what is democracy and what is not.

--PA