This One Goes Out to John Caruso

Lots and lots of people have made lots and lots of excuses for Barack Obama. But as far as I know, former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya is the only one making these excuses who was ousted during Obama's presidency in a coup designed by the United States.

This is from an interview with Zelaya from last May. Zelaya explains the evidence is clear that "This [June, 2009] coup d’état was made by the right wing of the United States," but then goes on to emphasize Obama has no responsibility for what happened:

AMY GOODMAN: ...the coup d’état took place under President Obama, not before. MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] We’re talking about the United States, so it’s an empire. The United States is an empire, and so Obama is the president of the United States, but he is not the chief of the empire. Even though Obama would be against the coup, the process toward the coup was already moving forward. The most that they tell a president like President Obama, that there’s a political crisis going on. But they do not talk about the details that they were involved in in terms of the conspiracy. AMY GOODMAN: President Obama early on called it a coup. But then the administration seemed to back off, both he and Hillary Clinton. MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] They gave themselves up before the coup itself. That is the proof, in fact, that the coup came from the north, from the U.S. So they are even able to bend the arm of the President of the United States, President Obama, and the State Department, and they impeded my restitution as president of the country.



I guess it's possible Zelaya doesn't actually believe this, and is just trying to keep whatever teeny-tiny amount of access he has to the Obama administration. But in a way that would be even sadder.

UP NEXT: Obama strangles Jonathan Chait's children with his bare hands, after which Chait explains that Obama was "doing the best he could under extremely difficult historical circumstances."

—Jonathan Schwarz

Posted at November 27, 2011 06:26 PM

