Patterico's Pontifications

9/20/2009

Sunday Morning Obama @ Univision: Obama’s Plan for Honduras

Filed under: International,Obama — DRJ @ 3:16 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

President Obama’s 5th Sunday interview was with Univision’s Jorge Ramos. They talked about health care, immigrants, Cuba and this section about Honduras:

[NOTE: Even though I think you can get the gist of the conversation, I don’t guarantee the accuracy of this translation. Suggested corrections are welcome in the comments.]

RAMOS: Y finalmente sobre Honduras. ¿Va usted a reconocer al ganador de las elecciones presidenciales en Honduras este noviembre?

And finally on Honduras. Will you recognize the winner of the presidential elections in Honduras this November?

OBAMA: Bueno, yo lo que quisiera ver es a las partes respaldar la propuesta de Arias. Yo creo que esto haría que las elecciones próximas serían mucho más legítimas.

Well, what I want to see is for the parties to support the proposal of [Costa Rican President] Arias. I believe that this would make the next elections much more legitimate.”

The Arias’ proposal requires Honduras to return former President Zelaya to power. The Honduran government ousted Zelaya because he tried to change the constitution to extend his Presidential term. Ironic, isn’t it? Because now Costa Rican President Arias also wants to change his country’s constitution:

President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica has joined the trend in Latin America of calling for a new constitution that would expand executive powers and get rid of “unnecessary checks” on the president’s authority. Although Arias has less than 9 months left in office and can’t run for reelection, his brother and current minister of the presidency — a primer minister of sorts — has openly said he’s interested in running for president in 2014. A new constitution with expanded executive powers would fit him just fine.

Arias’ call has been received with broad skepticism. La Nación, Costa Rica’s leading newspaper, said that trying to make the government more efficient through a constitutional convention was like “killing a mouse with cannon fire.” The newspaper also said that the idea of dismantling the checks and balances on executive power sounds like an effort to create an “imperial presidency.
***
Most people outside Costa Rica see Arias as an accomplished democrat who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to bring peace to Central America during the 1980s. Most recently he attempted to mediate the conflict in Honduras after Manuel Zelaya was (legally) removed from office. However, many people in Costa Rica fret about what they perceive as an increasingly controlling style of governing by Arias and his brother, intimidating the media, bullying the opposition, crowding key government posts with allies and cronies, and now hoping for a dynastical succession in 2014.”

America The Obama Administration continues to be on the wrong side of the Honduran issue.

— DRJ

36 Responses to “Sunday Morning Obama @ Univision: Obama’s Plan for Honduras”

  1. America continues to be on the wrong side of the Honduran issue.

    Not America. Just the POTUS and his administration, and their supporters (few of whom have a clue about what’s been going on there).

    Beldar (8b93ba)

  2. Good point. I’ll fix it.

    DRJ (a51a0e)

  3. It’s funny how Univison puts quotes around “illegals.” Is there video of this interview?

    Randy Haddock (f49b56)

  4. He also doesn’t answer direct questions en español. Ramos should have gone after him for that non-answer.

    What a world we live in, where Fox News is the enemy and socialists are our “allies.”

    carlitos (9ce319)

  5. Ear Leader is squarely on the side of his allies in this.

    unfortunately, none of them, Ear Leader or the rest, are on the side of the people of the Americas….. any of them. would be tin horn dictators all. a pox upon their collectivist houses.

    redc1c4 (fb8750)

  6. Randy Haddock,

    I think the video is here. I translated the “illegal immigrant” part of the interview, too, but decided not to post on it. From what I could tell, Ramos objected to Obama’s use of the term “illegal immigrants” instead of “undocumented immigrants.” Obama said he was responding to objections that health care covers illegal immigrants and using the words of the persons making the objections in his response.

    DRJ (a51a0e)

  7. Thanks, DRJ. BTW, is there a way to set up reply notifications in your commenting system?

    Randy Haddock (f49b56)

  8. Randy,

    I don’t think so. Maybe some tech-savvy people know more about WordPress than I do, but I haven’t seen that option on this platform. It would be nice but as Maxwell Smart used to say, “Sorry about that, Chief.”

    DRJ (a51a0e)

  9. Guys, we all need to get a clue about what’s going on here.

    Do any of you recall that interview Obama gave in 2001 on Chicago NPR station WBEZ? It was widely reported on the blogs, but naturally not in the MSM as they were helping him maintain the lie that he was a centrist.

    In it he talked about redistributing wealth and economic and social justice. He talked about how the Supreme Court had balked at addressing “redistributive justice,” and how one of the great failures of the civil rights movement was getting the court to therefore remain so court-focused. Because by doing so they lost sight of the political and community organizing work necessary to bring about the necessary redistributive change.

    Among the things Obama blurted out was his statement

    “As radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it has been interpreted — and Warren Court interpreted it in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you. But it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.”

    Now, remember this is after talking about redistribution of his other social, political, and economic goal as basic issues of justice in this society. So when he talked of the failure of the courts to “break free from the essential constraints” contained in the Constitution he was lamenting that fact.

    Indeed, in response to a caller who shared his ideological impulse that this redistributive justice was required to fix society, he went on to say that he wasn’t optimistic you could use the courts to effect redistributive change in the foreseeable future.

    He said he was revealing his bias as a legislator and law professor. I’m sure his pessimism has receded somewhat now that he’s in a position to directly effect the composition of the USSC.

    I’ve found this interview a revealing insight into the man. He was talking as a purported Constitutional scholar at the University of Illinois. He clearly understands the original intent of the framers to draft a document that constrains government. And he laments that the courts hadn’t broken free of those constraints.

    I’ve suffered only one dissappoint with Obama. That a man with such contempt for the Constitution could get elected to the Presidency.

    But since then I haven’t been surprised or dissappointed. When Obama joined Chavez, Castro, and Ortega in demanding that Honduras readmit Zelaya in violation of their own Constitution I viewed it as entirely predictable and in character for the man.

    After all, as far as he’s concerned that trio is the force of good. And Zelaya was just another leftist trying to break free from the constraints of his own Constitution, just as Obama hopes (and I expect will attempt to) break free from the constraints of his own.

    Just like I could hardly be surprised when the candidate from ACORN wasn’t the least bit concerned about Ahmadinejad stealing his own election and then shooting, killing, imprisoning, and raping protestors. That’s the kind of guy Obama can do business with.

    In both cases he did exactly what I expected him to do. I’m sure all the pundits who bought the chameleon act he put on during the campaign were shocked or dissappointed. But then, I guess you have to live in an ivory tower of some sort to fall for such and obvious scam.

    As an aside, I expect that ACORN “investigation” being conducted by its own cronies to be just as thorough as Ahmadinejad’s own investigation of his electoral victory in which he determined himself the legitimate victor. And once things are papered over sufficiently, Obama will continue to do business with ACORN just as enthusiastically he wants to do with Ahmadinejad.

    Steve (feb1d1)

  10. The Obama Administration continues to be on the wrong side of the Honduran issue.

    Marxists find democracy just gets in the way of efficiently spreading the wealth.

    Terry Gain (f3f8a5)

  11. Thanks, DRJ. BTW, is there a way to set up reply notifications in your commenting system?

    Please don’t adopt that clueless, user unfriendly, Disqus System.

    Terry Gain (f3f8a5)

  12. You have to hand it to Leftists/Liberals/Progressives for the way that they are thoroughly committed to
    One Man, One Vote, One Time!
    If nothing else, they are consistent.

    And, our LiC is nothing if he isn’t a committed Liberation Theologist.
    He sat, for 20-25 years in a church that had Liberation Theology preached from the pulpit each and every week.
    His foreign policy reflects that committment in how he is willing to undermine democratic governments in the interests of totalitarian ones.

    AD - RtR/OS! (a66538)

  13. No strikeout needed. As long as Obama sets American policy, American continues to be on the wrong side of the Honduran issue – and most non-Honduran ones, as well.

    Xrlq (62cad4)

  14. Oscar Arias was a popular president of Costa Rica in the 80’s when he won the Nobel Prize. That he is now among those who want to see more concentration of power in the presidency and getting rid of term limits suggests just how vile this influence must be in that region of the world (again).

    MD in Philly (d4f9fa)

  15. This is not being on the wrong side. This is evil. Isolating the poorest country in America to force a dirty socialist back into power. There are so many people living on the margins in that little country. What do you think happens?

    happyfeet (6b707a)

  16. *Latin* America

    happyfeet (6b707a)

  17. “The Honduran government ousted Zelaya because he tried to change the constitution to extend his Presidential term.”

    That’s a flat out lie.
    Zelaya proposed a non-binding referendum asking if the voters would approve of an additional ballot box on the voting day of the presidential election IN WHICH HE COULD NOT RUN.
    That box would be regarding the question of rewriting the entire Honduran constitution.
    Do facts mean so little to you?

    Arias won the Nobel, none of you have.
    Who do we believe?

    Bored again (d80b5a)

  18. Bored again,

    From the Latin American Herald Tribune: “Thousands March Against Zelaya’s Plan to Change Honduras Constitution”

    From the Orlando Republican-Examiner: “Zelaya supporters confirm his intent to change Honduras constitution”

    From an Op-Ed in the LA Times:

    [T]he Honduran Constitution may be amended in any way except three. No amendment can ever change (1) the country’s borders, (2) the rules that limit a president to a single four-year term and (3) the requirement that presidential administrations must “succeed one another” in a “republican form of government.”

    In addition, Article 239 specifically states that any president who so much as proposes the permissibility of reelection “shall cease forthwith” in his duties, and Article 4 provides that any “infraction” of the succession rules constitutes treason. The rules are so tight because these are terribly serious issues for Honduras, which lived under decades of military rule.

    As detailed in the attorney general’s complaint, Zelaya is the type of leader who could cause a country to wish for a Richard Nixon. Earlier this year, with only a few months left in his term, he ordered a referendum on whether a new constitutional convention should convene to write a wholly new constitution. Because the only conceivable motive for such a convention would be to amend the un-amendable parts of the existing constitution, it was easy to conclude — as virtually everyone in Honduras did — that this was nothing but a backdoor effort to change the rules governing presidential succession. Not unlike what Zelaya’s close ally, Hugo Chavez, had done in Venezuela.”

    DRJ (c51ed0)

  19. Not you bored still….

    reff (502473)

  20. At least “Bored again” dropped the abject falsehood third word in his moniker. Next, he needs to drop all the rest of his abject falsehoods in his trollery commentary.

    John Hitchcock (3fd153)

  21. Someone with a self-revealing name wrote:

    “Arias won the Nobel, none of you have.
    Who do we believe?”

    Um.

    Rigoberta Menchu comes to mind.

    Whom do you believe? I mean, after you do a little research on this whole Nobel Prize = Infallability issue. Which is more than a little ironic, from folks who claim to dislike authority.

    Eric Blair (0b61b2)

  22. The Nobel Peace Prize goes to terrorists and terrorist-lovers alike. Unlike the Nobel Prize for physics, which goes to physicists who actually know something about physics. Look at the history. Context, ya know?

    John Hitchcock (3fd153)

  23. Arias won the Nobel, none of you have.

    Big whoop-de-doo.

    That’s like saying because the New York Times has won more Pulitzer Prizes of any newspaper in America, it therefore can be trusted, it therefore can be believed. And, uh-huh, the paper’s “lefty” politics don’t undermine the quality and objectivity of its judgment.

    (A big shout-out to Jayson Blair!)

    Mark (411533)

  24. Heh, my bro is an English prof, unlike EB, who only uses a moniker tied to an area where English profs reside. That means my views on everything are more valuable than EB’s views, because he’s a phony.

    Not really, but that’s “bored again” logic.

    John Hitchcock (3fd153)

  25. boredagain,

    President for life is unacceptable even if it’s not any one particular ‘liberal’ dictator.

    And it’s illegal in honduras to move for these changes. It’s illegal for Zelaya to serve in any elected office, so Obama’s asking honduras to break the law to help Obama’s liberal friend.

    Honduras is handling this well. They are thinking long term.

    Regardless, it’s hilarious that you are telling us that Zelaya’s stated intention not to run for office again has any meaning. the dude’s offices had the election results of an election that hadn’t occurred yet. You trust him anyway?

    Juan (bd4b30)

  26. Oh, and my sister-in-law (married to the English prof) is a Czech national who is also an RN in the US after being an RN in the Czech Republic. So my views are more valuable than POTUS’ views regarding Czech and medicine.

    Heh, bad example, because mine ARE more valuable than his.

    John Hitchcock (3fd153)

  27. Waiting for proposals for re-interpreting clauses in the Constitution of the USA.

    htom (412a17)

  28. 27. htom:

    Waiting for proposals for re-interpreting clauses in the Constitution of the USA.

    There won’t be any “proposals” for reinterpreting the Constitution, because it’s already being done!

    That is the essence of Emanuel’s comment about never letting a crisis go to waste and the nationalization of the financial and automotive industries…plus the appointment of dozens of “czars” (while appointments that have traditionally required the advice and consent of the Senate go unfilled).

    Steve’s comment above is spot on, the O!ne has never respected the Constitution (in the sense that he would allow it to constrain his actions), so he feels no need to bother with petty little things like “re-interpreting” it.

    EW1(SG) (edc268)

  29. “Arias won the Nobel, none of you have.

    As did Yasser Arafat. And Jimmah Carter. Shall I go on? WTH is your point, as if you even had one to begin with?

    Dmac (a93b13)

  30. Steve’s comment above is spot on

    Of course it’s spot on, EW1.

    I’m a squid, too. I worked with your types. Well, the rating your types merged with. That must have smartened me up.

    But I was an O. So that means I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic, and bear true faith and allegiance to the same.

    I was just old fashioned enough to take it seriously. Which obviously makes me a right wing nut. Nobody else takes that oath seriously these days.

    But anyway, the oath the government wrote and insisted I take clearly envisions the possibility that such a thing as a domestic enemy of the Constitution could exist.

    One thing I’ve always wondered is, what would constitute a domestic enemy of the Constitution?

    I’d have to say it’s someone who knows the framers intended the written Constitution was intended to constrain the government, wishes the Warren court had broken free of those “essential constraints” in order to advance the cause of “redistributive justice,” and then went ahead with the necessary political and community organizing in order to build the coalitions of power necessary to bring about the redistribution of wealth and address other “basic” issues of political, economic, and social “justice” anyway, as if he wasn’t aware the constitutional constraints existed.

    Because there is only one kind of rebellion that can take place in a nation founded on the principle that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, and the Constitution is the instrument in which the people consent to delegate specific, enumerated powers to the government they create.

    It is when government officials attempt to break free from those constraints that the people have placed upon them.

    Steve (b8cd24)

  31. Comment by Steve — 9/21/2009 @ 8:50 am

    You mean, like now?

    AD - RtR/OS! (8c7b14)

  32. You mean, like now?

    Comment by AD – RtR/OS! — 9/21/2009 @ 9:41 am

    Actually, yes. I’ve been following several legal blogs that basically agree on the health care fines and mandates.

    There isn’t a legal theory that takes the text of the Constitution at all seriously under which the mandates or fines are constitutional. But based on its own past precedents they certainly could and almost certainly will say they are constitutional.

    But I’ve never come across a politician in my whole life that expressed such open contempt for the Constitution. At least, not one that I thought had even a remote chance to get elected to anything higher than mayor of Berkeley, CA.

    Steve (b8cd24)

  33. […] Sunday Morning Obama @ Univision: Obama’s Plan for Honduras Posted in news, politics « BUMPED: (Audio Added) – DEVELOPING – Breitbart Dropping The Other Shoe: Obama Admin. and NEA Coordination var blogurl="http://infidelsparadise.com"; var needemail="1"; var nowurl="684"; var md5 = "34c778ff108eb7a53d2464290348beb6"; […]

    Zelaya and Chavez “Claim” The Booted Dictator Is Back In Honduras (7b23e8)

  34. As the acting Honduran President told Greta van Susteren in her interview with him last week, Obama has cut off all American aid to that country. But they refuse to cave-in on what is a non-negotiable Constitutional issue in order to restart the $35MM in US aid. (Maybe that is what is so perplexing to Obama and Clinton – they can’t understand the possiblilty of being constrained by Constitutional provision.)

    I bet with a little effort the readers of conservative blogs could match that amount. So much for the US aiding struggling democracies. Do I remember we gave Hamas $900MM earlier this year?

    in_awe (a55176)

  35. http://faustasblog.com/?p=15650

    Zelaya is back in Honduras. Barcky is an idiot.

    JD (9019c8)

  36. This is an article that shows what a loon Zelaya is.

    he claims his throat is sore from toxic gases and “Israeli mercenaries” are torturing him with high-frequency radiation.

    Note the anti-semitic undertone typical of Obama’s friends, Wright & Chavez.

    SPQR (26be8b)


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