FUND RAISING AT THE WSJ - AT 8:07 A.M. ET:  The excellent John Fund of the Wall Street Journal continues that paper's fine reporting on Honduras.  Fund explains why the Obama administration is wrong (alas, again).

Many foreign observers are condemning the ouster of Honduran President Mel Zelaya, a supporter of Hugo Chavez, as a "military coup." But can it be a coup when the Honduran military acted on the orders of the nation's Supreme Court, the step was backed by the nation's attorney general, and the man replacing Mr. Zelaya and elected in emergency session by that nation's Congress is a member of the former president's own political party?

Some things for the collective White House - an appropriate term for the age of Obama - to think about.

Mr. Zelaya had sacked General Romeo Vasquez, head of the country's armed forces, after he refused to use his troops to provide logistical support for a referendum designed to let Mr. Zelaya escape the country's one-term limit on presidents. Both the referendum and the firing of the military chief have been declared illegal by the Honduran Supreme Court. Nonetheless, Mr. Zelaya intended yesterday to use ballots printed in Venezuela to conduct the vote anyway.

And this man is being treated like a hero by the Obamans.  As Fund points out, Zelaya is channeling Chavez's tactics.

No one likes to see a nation's military in the streets, especially in a continent with such painful memories of military rule. But Honduras is clearly a different situation. Members of Mr. Zelaya's own party in Congress voted last week to declare him unfit for his office. Given his refusal to leave, who else was going to enforce the orders of the nation's other branches of government?

Fund's piece is a fine example of what fact-based reporting can do.

July 1, 2009