WSJ on Honduras

The Wall Street Journal has an editorial about the Honduran crisis, blaming the Obama administration for its handling of the situation. That is to be expected from the WSJ editorial board, but it is frustrating to see the same lies (it is too late, I think, to call them misrepresentations, misstatements, errors, or the like because the facts are so well known).

The essential argument for those who support Roberto Micheletti is that Mel Zelaya's ouster was entirely constitutional. So the editorial includes the following:

Mr. Zelaya was deposed and deported this summer after he agitated street protests to support a rewrite of the Honduran constitution so he could serve a second term.

We've gone over this a hundred times, and the best argument anyone can make is that "everyone knows" Zelaya would try for a second term, which is then taken as the same as evidence. But term limits were never mentioned in the referendum, and even the Supreme Court largely avoided the issue in its own supporting documents.

But this one is even better:

To avoid violence the Honduran military escorted Mr. Zelaya out of the country. In other words, his removal from office was legal and constitutional, though his ejection from the country gave the false appearance of an old-fashioned Latin American coup.

Escorted! What an odd word to choose. In legal terms, this is otherwise known as "forced into exile in violation of the constitution by a military acting according to its own whims without regard for the law." That is a coup.

I understand very well the anti-Zelaya arguments. But the lying is just sad.