Did Ousted Honduran President Zelaya 'Dress for Media Success?'

In the Honduran news fable, one of the central images on the mainstream media storyboard has been the press conference Mel Zelaya conducted in his pajamas in Costa Rica.

Yet the Honduran military has now declared on the record for the first time – in a judicial proceeding – that the pajama gambit was a fake. They stated that Zelaya was sent out of Honduras fully dressed in normal clothing and his customary cowboy boots. That is the same account of events that the Honduran authorities were privately telling people from the first moment, but no military official had ever stated it on the record until now.

From the first moment news commentators and arrogant interviewers would nail their argument by saying “when a president is flown out of the country in his pajamas how can that not be a military coup”. No legal analysis was really needed because of the pajamas.

But what if Zelaya had been fully dressed and had changed his costume before heading to a press conference? What if Zelaya once in flight had decided that dressing down would be the key to a successful press event? Among other things it would mean that Zelaya has a brilliant sense of media and political theatre.

One curious detail has always been that Zelaya in exile had the official presidential credit card (and in five days ran up $80,000 in charges before it was canceled). Most of us keep credit cards in our wallets, not in our pajamas.

Machiavelli wrote that “luck” was of central importance in the affairs of state. But should he have also said that “clothes make the man?”