From the New York Times, this is stunning:
By Sunday night, officials in Washington said they had spoken with Mr. Zelaya and were working for his return to power in Honduras, despite relations with Mr. Zelaya that had recently turned colder because of the inclusion of Honduras in the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, or ALBA, a leftist political alliance led by Venezuela.
The effort to engage Mr. Zelaya differed from Washington’s initial response to Venezuela’s brief coup in April 2002, when the Bush administration blamed Mr. Chávez for his own downfall and denied knowing about the planning of the coup, despite the revelation later that the Central Intelligence Agency knew developments about the plot in Caracas on the eve of its execution.
Simon Romero, writing for the New York Times, notes that "governments in the Western Hemisphere from across the ideological spectrum found a rare issue around which they could swiftly arrive at unity."
What amazes is a U.S. Administration working to restore a leftist President to Honduras . . . or even talking about doing so. Honduras after all is where the Reagan-backed contras were stationed, in their guerrilla war against Nicaragua. To name only one example of U.S. actions in the region.
This is one of those not-infrequent moments when I -- someone not slow to criticize our President -- am truly grateful that the American people managed to get together and elect President Obama.
For further info on events in Honduras, see Codejo4's terrific and oft-updated diary.