Washington Post editorialist Lee Hockstader wrote a puff profile on Haiti's thuggish President-elect Michel Martelly ("Haiti's 'Sweet Micky' Martelly Turns Presidential," 4/24/11), whom he depicts as

a fresh, vital force on the political scene, bringing with him energy and a new (mostly untested) crop of advisers, unbeholden to any recent political establishment. Little wonder that in the runoff election, Martelly, who is 50, beat a professorial 70-year-old former first lady 2 to 1.

How can you write about Martelly's run-off "victory" without noting that both rounds of the election had historically low turnout--not just for Haiti, but for the Western Hemisphere? According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research (4/5/11), which follows Haiti closely, Martelly "won only 4.6 percent of the electorate in the first round and 16.7 percent in the second round." There is indeed "little wonder" that even a candidate with ties to the bloody Duvalier dictatorship who promises to restore the hated Haitian army can get that much support.

Speaking of Duvalier, Hockstader includes the usual spurious equation of the dictator with twice-deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, calling both "divisive former presidents who have recently returned to Haiti from exile and who might face prosecution." In the most recent election he was allowed to participate in, Aristide got 92 percent of the vote with a 68 percent turnout. So who's really the "divisive" president?
UPDATE: The Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, an intergovernmental organization, calculated the turnout for the 2000 election at 78 percent, which may be a more accurate number.

It was certainly surprising to see former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier return to the country on January 16. To say he has blood on his hands is an understatement--the Duvalier regimes were responsible for tens of thousands of deaths and widespread abuse, and stole millions of dollars from the country.

Soon thereafter, former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide announced his intention to return to his country. Aristide, twice elected and twice removed from office, remains a popular figure in Haitian politics. His first stint in office was remarkably peaceful; his second, during which he faced armed attacks that eventually succeeded in overthrowing his government, was scarcely more violent. But some media accounts are expressing concern about Aristide's return, in effect equating him with the bloody Duvalier.

USA Today columnist DeWayne Wickham wrote a piece on February 8 headlined "U.S. Meekly Allows Despots to Return to Haiti." Wickham recounts the horrors of Duvalier's reign of terror, but for some unfathomable reason decides that Aristide poses some comparable menace to Haiti--his return might "push Haiti closer to turmoil," and the two of them are "old troublemakers from returning at a time when Haiti's democracy is most vulnerable to the havoc they almost certainly will produce."

Wickham seems mostly concerned about democracy:

With another round of voting scheduled for March 20, the thing Haiti needs more than anything else now is a level of stability and calm. But what it's likely to get once Aristide returns--and once he and Duvalier rally their old supporters to their side--will be a return to the bloody factionalism that punctuated their time at the helm of Haiti's government.

It might be worth pointing out that Aristide's Lavalas party--still enormously popular--was banned from participating in last year's election, which as a result had the lowest turnout of any election held in the Western Hemisphere in the last 60 years.

The Duvalier = Aristide equation could be seen elsewhere. A New York Times report (2/9/11) warned that "experts inside and outside Haiti fear that the presence of the two former leaders could further destabilize the country." The Times went on to note that "members of the international community expressed concern that Mr. Aristide...could create widespread instability at a precarious moment." The story does note that Aristide was "beloved by the poor but criticized by many"--given Haiti's massive poverty, it's hard to know what to make of that.

A short Los Angeles Times piece (2/8/11) conveyed a similar message: Aristide "has broad popular support but remains a polarizing figure in Haiti." That article also equated Duvalier and Aristide, reporting that "the return of the two former leaders comes at an unsteady moment for the country."

One would hope reporters could find a way to make a meaningful distinction between a ruthless, bloody dictator and a popular elected president. It is obscene to refer to them both as "leaders" or, as the USA Today headline put it,  "despots."