There is an obvious compromise available to end the Honduras crisis–or there was, anyway, until Secretary Clinton rejected it on Thursday.

Honduras’s ejected president Mel Zelaya saw the Secretary and apparently persuaded her that the outcome of Honduras’s next elections must be rejected. On what basis? None was stated, and no logical basis exists. The next elections will be entirely constitutional and held on time; and the term of office of the ousted Zelaya would end naturally and constitutionally when a new president is sworn in, in January. The candidates were selected before the current crisis began, and all the parties–including Zelaya’s Liberal Party, one half of Honduras’s essentially two party system–are participating. There is no reason whatsoever to doubt that the election can be monitored by international observers (and we could have demanded more of them than usual) and fairly conducted. Honduras’s vote for a new president on November 29 was the obvious way for everyone to dig out of the current mess without hurting the Honduran people and without damaging Honduras’s democratic institutions.