THE HIDDEN PERSUADER? - AT 10:43 A.M. ET:  America's Latin American policy borders on madness.  We are currently, and with considerable passion, trying to restore to the Honduran presidency a legally ousted leader, Mel Zelaya, who is a close ally of Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega and Fidel Castro.  It makes no sense at all...unless you look at some of the people around Obama.  Superb reporter Mary Anastasia O'Grady reports for the Wall Street Journal:

Having established that making nice with the region’s troublemakers is a priority, Mr. Obama now wants Mr. Zelaya—who was endorsed by the FARC last week—reinstated. If Honduras does not comply, the U.S. is threatening to freeze assets and revoke the visas of interim government officials.

Some Washington watchers figure this bizarre stance is due to the fact that Mr. Obama is relying heavily on White House Counsel Gregory Craig for advice on Latin America.

Mr. Craig was the lawyer for Fidel Castro—er, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, the father of Elian Gonzalez—during Bill Clinton’s 2000 repatriation to Cuba of the seven-year-old. During the presidential campaign when Mr. Craig was advising Mr. Obama, the far-left Council on Hemispheric Affairs endorsed Mr. Craig as “the right man to revive deeply flawed U.S.-Latin America relations.” In other words, to pull policy left.

There is plenty of speculation that Mr. Obama is making policy off of Mr. Craig’s “expertise.” It is not too much to believe. Indeed, if all policy is now being run out of the White House, as many observers contend, then the views of the White House counsel may explain a lot.

COMMENT:  It's devastating enough that the White House counsel has that background, just as devastating that the media didn't tell us, and more devastating to think that he could be having influence.  The president's domestic policy is a train wreck.  His foreign policy is another train going off the tracks.

August 1, 2009