There Are No "Cracks" in Global Opposition to the Honduran Coup; There Are Only Anti-Democracy Republicans in Congress

The New York Times has a story up about the lack of progress in the Honduran talks between Micheletti and Zelaya, which Arias is mediating. It's clear that neither side wants to give an inch, and while things may improve, time is probably on Micheletti's side. The report also suggests that there are "cracks emerging in the group of countries demanding the return of the ousted president." It's evidence of these "cracks?" Congressional Republicans are in favor of the coup, and Hugo Chavez thinks Arias is erring in treating Micheletti as an equal to Zelaya.


So basically, it takes a random quotation from Chavez on diplomacy (an area that isn't exactly Chavez's strength), and Republican support for the coup, to suggest there are "cracks" in the coalition of countries against the coup?


Hardly.


The Times is clearly trying (and failing) to make something out of nothing here. I really don't know why they reported this - the story about the progress (and lack thereof) and obstacles facing Arias's talks was fine, and stood on its own. It didn't need these ridiculous insinuations that Republicans using the Honduran incident for partisan purposes plus a quotation from Chavez (who has nothing to do with the negotiations, and whose quotation is fairly mild by his own standards) to imply that support globally is falling appart. And it's not like this "breaking news" that Republicans are coming out in favor of the coup is sudden. Even before last week's congressional caucus supporting the coup formed, Republicans had been commenting since the coup in June that they supported the coup and were anti-Zelaya due to his leftist allegiances and so-called "authoritarian" tendencies (which is a rather off from the reality of things).


As is often the case, though, the Times authors (liberal media indeed) do not seem to care about such minor points. Instead, the report takes a congressional caucus designed to play the worst kind of partisan politics and to turn back to an obviously-outdated Cold War mentality in order to gain points, and conflates it to a sign of "cracks" emerging in the global opposition to the coup, when nothing of the sort has happened.


And then the Times wonders why subscriptions are down.