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It seems like just yesterday that Lanny Davis was making the rounds of every news outlet that would have him, talking up Hillary Clinton's bid for the White House -- and/or pushing the Reverend Wright story.

Not too long after, the former Clinton White House counsel popped up to do damage control for hawkish Democratic congresswoman Jane Harman over the AIPAC leak story.

And now the hardest working conservative Democrat in show business has a new gig: lobbying against the Honduran leader recently deposed in a military coup.

The Hill reports that Davis has been hired by the Honduran branch of CEAL, the Latin American equivalent of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, to urge US lawmakers to support, rather than oppose, the military removal of President Manuel Zelaya, Honduras's democratically elected president.

Of course, thanks to his close ties to the current Secretary of State -- who met with Zelaya yesterday -- Davis could be particularly well placed for the job. But the Fox News contributor said he had no plans to set up a meeting between Clinton and the current and former Honduran government officials with whom he's working.

Although last month Zelaya was taken from his bed by the military and forcibly removed from the country, Davis portrayed his work for the coup's supporters as all about law and order:

Davis said the business group wants to restore order to Honduras, which has been in upheaval since the country's military ousted Zelaya on June 28 after he tried to alter the constitution.

"This is about the rule of law. That is the only message we have," Davis said, adding that Zelaya "was acting unconstitutionally and illegally" when he pushed for a voter referendum to change presidential term limits. The Central American nation's other branches of government opposed his move, and his decision to ignore them led to his ouster.

Already, Davis has lined up meetings between Senate and House foreign relations committee aides and current and former high-level officials with the Honduran government

For by no means the first time, Davis finds himself lined up with Republicans, who have charged that, since the coup, the Obama administration has offered "one-sided support" to Zelaya, an ally of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

Hey, a guy has to make a living.

Zachary Roth
TMP

SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica — When President Óscar Arias of Costa Rica set out to find a negotiated solution to the Honduran political crisis, he hailed it as an opportunity for Central Americans to show they could resolve their own problems, and he established some simple ground rules.
The ousted president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, and the man who leads the de facto government that replaced him, Roberto Micheletti, were each to show up at his house with just four of their closest Honduran advisers.

On Thursday morning, Mr. Micheletti showed up with six, adding an American public relations specialist who has done work for former President Bill Clinton and the American’s interpreter, and an official close to the talks said the team rarely made a move without consulting him.

Then on Friday, with the negotiations seemingly going nowhere, Mr. Arias reached out for American support of his own, telling Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that pressure from the United States was crucial to ending the stalemate.

In the two weeks since the coup against Mr. Zelaya, the Obama administration has taken great pains to distance itself from the crisis as part of an effort to make the United States just one of many players in a region that it has long dominated. And Latin American leaders have publicly expressed support for what they describe as Washington’s new spirit of collaboration.

Privately, and not so privately, however, it has become clear that leaders on all sides of this crisis see the United States as the key to getting what they want.

In recent days, Mr. Zelaya and his allies, who include some of the most vocal critics of United States policy in the region, have repeatedly called on Washington to increase its pressure on Mr. Micheletti by recalling its ambassador — the United States is one of the few countries in the region that continues to keep its envoy in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital — and by imposing tougher sanctions.

Even Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, made a rare call to Assistant Secretary of State Thomas A. Shannon Jr. on Friday to directly make an appeal he had issued earlier on television.

“Do something,” Mr. Chávez had said to reporters. “Obama, do something.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Micheletti has embarked on a public relations offensive, with his supporters hiring high-profile lawyers with strong Washington connections to lobby against such sanctions. One powerful Latin American business council hired Lanny J. Davis, who has served as President Clinton’s personal lawyer and who campaigned for Mrs. Clinton for president.

And last week, Mr. Micheletti brought the adviser from another firm with Clinton ties to the talks in Costa Rica. The adviser, Bennett Ratcliff of San Diego, refused to give details about his role at the talks.

“Every proposal that Micheletti’s group presented was written or approved by the American,” said another official close to the talks, referring to Mr. Ratcliff.

With or without the presence of foreigners, Mr. Arias faces long odds against success. Mr. Zelaya and Mr. Micheletti refused to meet face to face and left the talks before the end of the first day. And while there was less hostility between the two delegations on Day 2, an official close to the talks said Mr. Arias was unable to get the groups to agree on a date for the next round of talks or even to shake hands in front of the throngs of reporters gathered outside his home.

GINGER THOMPSON
New York Times
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