The United States is being clobbered in Latin American and European capitals for its initial failure to condemn the short-lived coup that tried to overturn the government of Venezuela's leftist populist President Hugo Chávez last week, and much of the criticism is well deserved. In recent days, there has not been a major newspaper in the Spanish-speaking world that has not described the Bush administration's handling of the April 12 civic-military coup against Chávez as a dangerous departure from the 2-decade-old U.S. policy of strong support for democracy in Latin America, and a dangerous return to the days when U.S....