Are you a good coup or a bad coup?

I found myself reading the International Herald Tribune over breakfast, saw "Coup in Honduras," and thought "that can't be good." Then I read the article and started having a different point of view.

Yes, coups are bad. Bad coup, BAD coup. Except in this case, where the president of Honduras was an ally of Hugo Chavez, and was trying to set himself up for an illegal second term, in violation of a court order and ruling by the country's congress. The military refused to go along with the president's plans to, in essence, have his own coup, so they staged their own.

That's a lot messier than "coup in Honduras" might suggest.

Obama's reaction has been carefully pro-democracy, and understandably. It's not like we want to support a Chavez ally, but at the same time, we really don't want Latin America to start adopting the coup solution that was so prevalent over the last half century.

So what do you do?