Mr Chavez expects to be heard

We should have known that bad things would happen once Hugo Chavez got those warm abrazos from Barack Obama. ‘[Deposed Honduras president Manuel] Zelaya was trying to use mob rule to undermine Honduras's institutions in much the same way that Mr. Chávez has done in Venezuela,’ writes Mary O’Grady in the Wall Street Journal. After the country’s Congress voted 112-6 to remove Zelaya from office, the Honduran military arrested him and put him on the next plane out. ‘That might have been the end of it if the U.S. had supported the Honduran rule of law, or simply refrained from meddling,’ O’Grady continues. ‘Instead President Obama and the State Department joined Mr. Chávez and his allies in demanding that Mr. Zelaya be restored to power. This has emboldened Venezuela.’

Indeed: Chavez is now bold enough to phone Clinton’s assistant secretary for hemispheric affairs at 11:15 at night to demand Zayela’s return. I suppose we can be grateful that he doesn’t feel entitled to call Hillary or the president direct, but it does say something about this administration’s standing in the world when a thug like Chavez thinks he can order us around. Blue skies! – Dan Ford