First Zelaya scheduled a national vote on a constitutional convention. After the Honduran supreme court ruled that only the country's congress could call such an election, Zelaya ordered the army to help him stage it anyway. (It would be ''non-binding,'' he said.) When the head of the armed forces, acting on orders from the supreme court, refused, Zelaya fired him, then led a mob to break into a military base where the ballots were stored.
His actions have been repudiated by the country's supreme court, its congress, its attorney-general, its chief human-rights advocate, all its major churches, its main business association, his own political party (which recently began debating an inquiry into Zelaya's sanity) and most Hondurans: Recent polls have shown his approval rating down below 30 percent.
In fact, about the only people who didn't condemn Zelaya's political gangsterism were the foreign leaders and diplomats who now primly lecture Hondurans about the importance of constitutional law. They're also strangely silent about the vicious stream of threats against Honduras spewing from Chvez since Zelaya was deposed.
"Warning that he's already put his military on alert, Chvez on Monday flat-out threatened war against Honduras if Roberto Micheletti, named by the country's congress as interim president until elections in November, takes office.
''If they swear him in we'll overthrow him,'' Chvez blustered. ``Mark my words. Thugetti -- as I'm going to refer to him from now on -- you better pack your bags, because you're either going to jail or you're going into exile.''
Hey, Hillary: What does the Inter-American charter say about that?"
