Honduras, c2009...United States, c1974?...

...It is 1974, and the U.S. Supreme Court has ordered President Richard Nixon to turn over tapes allegedly pertaining to the obstruction of justice, per the then Watergate investigation. The Judicial Branch of the U.S. Government has ordered the Executive Branch that it hasn't ultimate standing, that Executive “Privilege” isn't even that, and assumes Nixon will abide by their decision and hold the Constitution and legal system -and some would say the "Country"- in higher regard than his Presidential power and personal/political goals & ambitions (for all his faults, this is exactly what he did).

But, imagine he didn't do this; imagine Nixon told the Court he didn't recognize their authority and/or that they should find something better to do with their time (his Quaker roots likely would have prevented him from telling the where to go, biblically anyway). What would the Court have done? They could repeat the order, send it a second time with an exclamation point at the end, they could offer up a "pretty please", or they could call and beg him to abide and a host of other things that would not have been any more persuasive than their original demand. Ultimately, to really settle the matter, they would need to decide what to do, how to enforce such a ruling on the Executive Branch. They would do so without any instructions per the U.S. Constitution (no article or footnote would have told Chief justice Warren Burger what he should have done). If Nixon would not do so willingly, then the Court would, ultimately, need to "force" him to do so. This means an order to people who officially exert force for a living, namely military or police. Since the U.S. is essentially barred from using the military, they would need to settle for the police, who could only arrest him and may or may not find the tapes. How would the matter be solved, really? What would become of Nixon if he did not care anything of the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court? Would the eventual solution look politically mature, philosophically thoughtful, or all that envious when explained to the rest of the world in 45-second sound bites on television, with close up video coverage of anyone who disagreed with the implementation?

Alternative scenario: Imagine President Nixon refuses to resign, irrespective of the events that unfold. Clearly, he would have been impeached, then convicted. But, so what. What if he simply did not care? So what if he refused to leave the White House or accept the decision and adhere to the subsequent conviction. What if Nixon stayed there in the White House, fired anyone who didn't support him, then surrounded himself with true believers who found him to be the sole future of the country? What would the U.S. Supreme Court do? The practical answer doesn't necessarily lie in the Constitution, that is for sure. Gerald Ford would end up President, but suppose Nixon still refuses to leave the White House. What does the Court and/or Ford do, exactly? Not an enviable position. Does the highest Court of the Land send a special envoy, send a former President to talk some sense into him, request help from an Ambassador from a country fond of democracy and/or the alleged rule of law, send in a shrink or two, play some Nancy Sinatra songs really really loud on the front lawn, send in the police chief or later the FBI? If Nixon will not leave then, eventually, someone needs to make him leave, and the question is who will that someone be and what will they do with him once they get him outside the property line of the Presidential property. It isn't very likely that Ford, Burger, Thomas Moorer, and others would have planned an invasion of the White House and put Nixon on a plane to a friendly country (wherever that would have been for him, maybe Paraguay). But, the scenario only seems silly as it is so hard to imagine a U.S. President doing such a thing - but being hard to imagine isn't an answer as to what would be done. If that seems a stretch, go all the way and imagine Nixon was eventually off somewhere freely or otherwise, when some nice, meddling entities decided he should be not just back in the U.S., but reinstated and back in the White House (also imagine the only reason for this anyone can find is that there is a nice, mostly incoherent and unquestionable quasi-religious argument pointing out that the worst thing in the world is that a democratically elected official wouldn't serve out a Presidential term). If the U.S. is to give Honduras free advice per the current stalemate, then they should be able to imagine all this, then explain it.

The Nixon thought experiment exists nonetheless; most people will not want to offer up a serious answer - especially those U.S. citizens fond of insisting on a return to the rule of Zelaya. You look almost silly regardless of how you intend to remove and eliminate Nixon from public view/discourse. To judge Honduras circa 2009, one really does need to imagine Nixon not giving up the tapes and/or not resigning, and how it would play out in any fashion one would be proud of, irrespective of one‘s view of Nixon. The idea that anyone elected democratically is somehow above the law for the next 1460 days seems to be the only explanation that makes sense per the outside analysis of the recent alleged coup in Honduras. The Country and Constitution are made to appear as though they are the product of some political amateur hour, a throwback to barbarism, or a front for military rule that never really went away. In reality, Constitutional law in almost any country gets real ugly real fast when one branch fails to put anything above itself. If you pit the senior player of one branch against another in almost any democracy, especially a fledgling one in a developing country, it is no great surprise that it starts to look less than impressive when viewed idealistically from afar. "Democratic" countries insistent on restoring Zelaya to power should offer up an official legal argument (give their Attorney General or equivalent something to do, and Harvard University Press can collect them and offer them in book form, padding everyone's resume and ego) for how they would handle an analogous problem in their own country. What will follow is not insight into upholding or maintaining the lofty principles of democratic rule but, in all likelihood, fodder for a decade of good skits on “Saturday Night Live”.