Word: latinate
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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That's been most apparent in Honduras, where the country's congress this week refused to reinstate democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya, a leftist who was ousted in a June 28 military coup. The Obama Administration condemned Zelaya's overthrow as an affront to Latin America's fledgling democracies. But conservatives led by GOP South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint - who blocked Valenzuela's confirmation to protest Obama's stance - and Bush Administration holdovers such as the U.S.'s ambassador to the Organization of American States, Lewis Amselem (who was finally replaced this week), pushed Obama into brokering a deal...
After months of delay, Arturo Valenzuela was finally confirmed as Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs last month. But for a job with such a long title, he may find it's short on clout these days. Ostensibly, Valenzuela is President Obama's new point man on Latin America; in reality, that job looks to be under the control of Republicans in Congress and conservatives inside Obama's own diplomatic corps. In fact, when it comes to U.S. policy in Latin America - as events this week in Honduras suggest - it's often hard to tell if George...
...Granted, Latin America is on Obama's back burner as he tackles Afghanistan. But next year he plans to tackle immigration reform - an issue, like drug trafficking and free trade, that's heavily related to how well the U.S. helps Latin America build more equitble democratic institutions (the region has the world's worst gap between rich and poor). Yet as he ends his first year in office, Obama seems to have ceded Latin America strategy to right-wing Cold Warriors whose thinking - including the idea that coups are still an acceptable means of regime change - is no more equipped...
...remaining two months of his term. It would be a good-faith sign that the country was returning to constitutional order. Instead the legislators, emboldened by the success of the coup, poked both Obama and constitutional order in the eye again this week. Coup-happy forces in other Latin American countries can only feel emboldened as well. (See pictures of post-coup violence in Honduras...
...Honduras debacle is just the latest example of Obama's actions failing his words in Latin America. He wowed the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad last spring with soaring pledges to drop Washington's heavy-handed double standards in the region. He won kudos for acknowledging that the drug war is as much about U.S. consumption as it is about Latin corruption. But the cheers have since turned to chagrin on numerous fronts. Obama is loath to offend supporters of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba; yet even Latin leaders who scorn the Castros shake their heads at Obama...