Editing Lanny Davis


== On Honduras ==
The following is a section of a Huffington Post article written by a professor who debated Lanny Davis on Honduras, fact checking the claims he made. The initial statements are from Davis while the fact check is from the professor. [[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-grandin/fact-checking-lanny-davis_b_255900.html]] 

Lanny Davis: I do want to say that I appeared on Democracy Now! with the assurance, Amy, that you would be a neutral moderator, yet your opening is an ideological rant that distorts the facts. For example, you said that Mr. Zelaya accepted the Arias accords. In fact, Mr. Zelaya rejected President Arias's proposal, and the government of Mr. Micheletti has announced, and has, in fact, said it would continue to discuss."

Fact Check: This is not true. On July 19, Oscar Arias made the following statement: "The Zelaya delegation fully accepted my proposal, but not that of Don Roberto Micheletti." Zelaya reaffirmed his willingness to accept the Arias plan just a few days ago.
In the face of international condemnation, Micheletti began to backpedal, saying that he would submit the accords to Congress and the Supreme Court. But Micheletti's own backers admit that this is an attempt to buy time until the November elections: "It isn't the conversations that will provide an exit for the people, rather, the elections in November," said one prominent supporter recently. Micheletti himself, on August 1, said he would never allow Zelaya back as president, which is clearly part of the Arias plan.

Davis: "By the way, the Congress, 95 percent of the Congress, even if you quarrel with plus or minus ten votes, voted to remove Mr. Zelaya."

Fact Check: Also not true. So far twenty-seven of the Honduran Congress' 128 members have publicly stated that they opposed the coup, that is, more than 20% of Congress members. The congressional vote Davis references was not transparent; some members who were suspected of being sympathetic to Zelaya weren't called to session; others were told that congress was adjourned. And even before the vote that Davis touts, Congress also voted to "accept" an obviously fake letter of resignation from Zelaya, dated June 25th -- that is, three days before the coup. This was before Davis took his current job, as I'm sure he would have caught that typo.

Davis said that he doesn't "defend what was done [that is, the way in which Zelaya was sent into exile by the military]. He should have been put in jail, as the Supreme Court ordered him. He violated the law."

Fact Check: Not true. Zelaya has only been accused of violating the law. There has been no trial, much less a conviction.

Davis: "The Congress overwhelmingly voted to remove him from office, because he violated Article 239 by his referendum."

Fact Check: False. The congressional decree that Lanny Davis here references did not mention article 239 of the Honduran constitution. The invocation of that article was retroactive, with the goal of justifying the military's illegal intervention into civilian politics.[[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-grandin/fact-checking-lanny-davis_b_255900.html]]