Imagine if W refused to leave

June 30, 3:53 PMPhiladelphia Conservative ExaminerClyde Middleton

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Imagine this scenario. President Bush in 2008 is about to be termed-out of the presidency. He doesn't want to leave. He openly declares that he is holding a special election to retain him in office. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is called into the Oval Office and told to publicly support the special election. Sensing the Executive branch is trying to take over the government - tossing the Constitution in the process - balks. Bush fires him. The Supreme Court of the United States declares the firing illegal. Bush moves forward with his plans for the special election. The Congress, military, and SCOTUS all confer. The day of the special election comes. The military puts Bush on a plane to Canada, and the Congress, in complete bipartisanship, appoint an interim president.

Sound outrageous? It is exactly what happened in Honduras. And Obama has publicly backed the usurping now-exiled president.

Obama makes Neville Chamberlain look like Genghis Khan.

Here's the facts from Honduras:

He sought vindication by ordering a national referendum that, he said, could alter the Constitution and allow him to run for re-election. And when every free, democratic institution from the Electoral Tribunal to the Supreme Court said no to his proposal, Zelaya pushed ahead anyway.

Last week, he called the military on the carpet, demanding it support his referendum. Gen. Romeo Vasquez, the head of the armed forces, considered this an illegal order, and refused to play ball -- so Zelaya fired him. (He accepted the defense minister's resignation, too.)

The next day, the Supreme Court ruled the firing unjustified. Zelaya refused to obey its decision. The court, he declared, worked only for the rich and caused problems for "democracy."

At every step, Zelaya's chief international backer, Hugo Chavez, cheered him on.

He'd set Sunday as the day of his contra-constitutional referendum. Instead, the Congress, the courts and the military stepped in and pulled the plug on Zelaya's maneuverings.

They sent him packing on a plane to Costa Rica. Then, in a deliberate, bipartisan manner, they selected a civilian president to serve through scheduled elections in November.

This was no coup, but a desperate act to protect the nation's constitution and its institutions from presidential excess and a descent into misrule Chavez-style.

Here's the facts from Obama:

Failing to restore ousted Honduran leader Manuel Zelaya to power would set a "terrible precedent," President Barack Obama said Monday in Washington, amid growing protests over a weekend military coup in the Latin American country.

Speaking after a meeting in the Oval Office with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, Obama told reporters the Honduran military's takeover of the presidential palace and decision to banish the democratically elected president from the country was "not legal."

The U.S. will work with other nations and international entities to resolve the matter peacefully and "stand on the side of democracy," Obama said.

Obama is on the wrong side of history. He has abjectly failed every single foreign-policy test he has taken - stunningly so.