Who is this guy?

President Obama continues to make dismaying stands on issues that call into question both his thinking and his motives. In both Iran and Honduras in the past weeks he has taken stances in stark contrast to previous American positions. I found this summary on powerline: "Whether the venue is Honduras, Russia, or Iran, Obama instinctively sides, in the first instance, with the enemies of freedom and the rule of law. And it doesn't hurt at all if that party is also hostile towards the U.S."

Most people have not even followed what is happening in Honduras but I find it an interesting case of how the news is reported and how this government spins the issue in direct contradiction of the facts.

Here is a brief exerpt summarizing what happened from Hans Bader of the examiner.com:
Last Sunday, Honduras removed its would-be dictator, Mel Zelaya, who flouted court rulings by using intimidation to try to get Hondurans to change their constitution to allow him to extend his tenure in office. The country's Supreme Court issued an arrest warrant for Zelaya, which the military enforced by seizing Zelaya and kicking him out of the country. The country's legislature then voted almost unanimously to replace him with its legislative speaker, in accord with the country's constitution.

Here is a statement on the issue by President Obama on June 28:
"I am deeply concerned by reports coming out of Honduras regarding the detention and expulsion of President Mel Zelaya. As the Organization of American States did on Friday, I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference."

The state department gives convuluted and unconvincing support of the President's position here http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2009/06a/125453.htm They seem to grant all of the facts to the case that the Honduran "coup" is in fact legal while they continue to arbitrarily label it illegal as seen in this line of questioning.
QUESTION: Oh, thanks. I’m with CNN. I just have one quick question, back on the idea of the survey. You said that you felt other institutions felt that it was illegal and unconstitutional, but did you think it was and did you advise the president not to invoke it?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Again, it’s not up to us to determine what’s legal or not within the context of Honduras. It was important for us to leave this to Honduran institutions to try to resolve. And that was really our focus, the focus of the OAS, and the focus of the other countries who were interested in a peaceful resolution of --
QUESTION: Yeah, but – I’m sorry. You talk about the democratic charter of the OAS and that you want all constitutional means to be adhered to. Did you find that – or you and your partners, I mean not just the United States, but did the international community and the OAS, who’s been talking about democratic principles and the need for constitutional – adhering to the constitution, believe that it was in line with the constitution?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Well, again, it’s not up to us to determine what’s in line with the constitution.
QUESTION: Yeah, but now you’re invoking the – I’m sorry, but now you’re invoking the constitution to return him. So did you think that what he was doing was in line with the constitution?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: No, but there’s a big distinction here because, on the one instance, we’re conducting about conducting a survey, a nonbinding survey; in the other instance, we’re talking about the forcible removal of a president from a country. So I think we can distinguish between those terms – those two in terms of what’s constitutional and what might be left to institutions.
But I think what’s important to remember about the survey is that it was just that. It wasn’t even a formal vote. It was a nonbinding survey. And the issue of whether it was legitimate or illegal did not revolve around the survey itself. It revolved around who conducted it and whether or not this could be conducted by the government and which institution in the government could conduct it, and whether or not as it’s being conducted state security forces could be used to both manage and secure the equipment that was being used for the survey and provide security. And that’s where the divide occurred within Honduras. It was about who conducted this survey, with several institutions in Honduras insisting that the Honduran Government could not conduct it, at least not in the way that President Zelaya had suggested.
And from our point of view, what was important was not inserting ourselves and trying to make a determination of what was legal or illegal, but trying to insist that the Hondurans find a way to resolve this in a way that was in accord with their constitution.


Despite this dramatic disconnection between the apparent facts and the mainstream media's stories calling this a "coup", our government continues to bash away at the Honduran government without taking on any of the opposing arguments.

I can only ask, "Why?" It doesn't make sense on any grounds other than the one I see presented in Powerline that the Obama administration is just pro-left. This deviation from both Republican and Democrat traditional positions regarding our principles upholding rule of law and the promotion of liberty are very disturbing.