They won't support following the constitutional removal of the president of Honduras, but they will support the appointment of a lieutenant governor in New York despite the decided lack of authority of David Paterson to do so.

We don’t know yet whether it was legal, but Gov. David Paterson of New York was right to take the plunge and name a lieutenant governor in an effort to break the increasingly damaging stalemate in Albany.

Got that? Limited government under the rule of law and constitutions be damned -- we like his style! Of course, the NY Times would never take this position were it not for the simple fact that David Paterson is a liberal's liberal. Had this been a Republican acting to guarantee Republican ascendancy in state government, there would be howls of outrage and demands for action by the courts and the legislature -- perhaps even a demand that President Obama act to guarantee New York a (small "r") "republican form of government" by sending in troops to remove the overreaching official and his supporters from office.

Of course, what we have here is an attempt by an unelected officeholder to appoint another unappointed official without constitutional authority in order gain control of the state Senate. I guess that all of a sudden democracy doesn't matter to the New York Times after all -- just a victory by the left-most forces in sight.