ANGER, PASSION, DRAMA, ROLL 'EM - AT 7:16 P.M. ET:  The president of the United States and all its territories and possessions is angry.  He is livid.  His emotions overflow.  And the cause?  Why, he doesn't like what was done to the president of Honduras, a leftist wannabe who started acting unconstitutionally and got tossed into the dustbin of history.  Even the mainstream media is trying to get the facts right:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday the coup that ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was illegal and would set a "terrible precedent" of transition by military force unless it was reversed.

"We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras, the democratically elected president there," Obama told reporters after an Oval Office meeting with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

Zelaya, in office since 2006, was overthrown in a dawn coup on Sunday after he angered the judiciary, Congress and the army by seeking constitutional changes that would allow presidents to seek re-election beyond a four-year term.

The Honduran Congress named an interim president, Roberto Micheletti, and the country's Supreme Court said it had ordered the army to remove Zelaya.

COMMENT:  Note the last line.  The country's Supreme Court acknowledged that it had ordered the army to remove the president.  Oh, such woe, says Obama:

"It would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition, rather than democratic elections," Obama said, noting the region's progress in establishing democratic traditions in the past 20 years.

But wait.  Hillary, who has also condemned the action, has lawyered this even further:

Despite Obama's comments, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the administration was not formally designating the ouster as a military coup for now.

Maybe the two should talk, and decide on the party line.

What's angering here - and please see our first post of the day on this - is that there's at least a reasonable chance that the ouster was legal.  Zelaya had started taking steps that were clearly ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, and there are consequences for things like that.

What's also angering is Obama's anger.  Compare please with his "we don't meddle" attitude when Iranian protesters were gunned down in the streets of Tehran.  This Zelaya is an ally of Chavez, Castro, Ortega and just about every left-wing glamour boy in the hemisphere.  Is that why Obama feels for him? 

If Obama is against military "coups," he sure could have picked a better case.  His reaction disheartens us further.  Why is our president always flirting with the wrong side?

June 29, 2009