The June 2009 Honduras coup d'etat was the first major foreign crisis Hillary Clinton would face as Secretary of State. On the day after the coup, President Obama said, "We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the democratically elected president there." However, in the ensuing months, the United States did little to support this position. The American response seems to have been doomed to failure by a combination of politically intervening parties: Republican ideologues led by Jim DeMint, and the lobbyist -- and longtime Clinton surrogate -- Lanny Davis. The Republican position was that it was not a coup, but a necessary and bloodless regime change that occurred in the course of, "defending the rule of law." After being lobbied by Davis, Hillary Clinton would take that position as well.
In July 2009, Lanny Davis lobbied Clinton directly on behalf of a group representing the Honduran aristocrats that funded the coup, the day before the deposed President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, got an opportunity to present his own case. By March 2010, after months of the State Department offering no assistance to Zelaya and repeatedly refusing to acknowledge the fact of the undemocratic coup funded by Honduran aristocrats, Hillary Clinton claimed that it had been a "managed" crisis "without violence" that resulted in a "democratically elected" government -- effectively taking Jim DeMint's position. This is despite the July 2009 report by the U.S. Ambassador to Honduras that, "the actions of June 28 can only be considered a coup d’etat by the legislative branch, with the support of the judicial branch and the military, against the executive branch." It is also despite clear evidence of a violent and oppressive junta controlling Honduras in the latter half of 2009. The Council on Hemispheric Affairs labelled Secretary Clinton's statements on Honduras as "carelessly stated," and, "misguided," noting the "murders, beatings, torture that the coup government used in order to repress the opposition."
It would be difficult for Republicans to use this as a line of attack against Clinton, considering how enamored they seem to be with the results for Honduras. But it raises a serious question for progressives about how much influence Lanny Davis had on her approach to the situation, and whether or not that sort of thing has been or would continue to be the norm. Since the coup, Honduras has essentially become a narco-state with a badly failing economy. America's standing in Latin America also took a substantial hit.
Hillary Clinton took a side she would take again and again as Secretary of State: in favor of regime change. This one turned out badly. Libya and Syria have, as well. Here’s something to consider — Bernie Sanders can’t go after Hillary Clinton’s record as Secretary of State, because to do so is to attack the foreign policy record of Barack Obama himself (not a good idea to do to the President of your own party that you want to replace). We all know Hillary Clinton made speeches to Goldman Sachs. If you want to challenge Hillary Clinton, do it on her actual record in public service, and do it where Bernie can’t do it himself. Look at Honduras, look at Libya, look at Syria, and Hillary Clinton’s hand in shaping those policies. Look at the results of these policies. If Republicans are smart (some of them actually are), you can bet that’s what they are doing.
[A FINAL NOTE: I can anticipate already the pushback on this one; people will say Zelaya had connections to Hugo Chávez, that Zelaya was a essentially a Honduran Chávez, and so forth. My metric for whether or not regime change was successful is quite simple: was what replaced the regime better, or worse? The things we can measure here, I think, show that Honduras is unquestionably worse.]