Garry Marshall tells a funny anecdote in his autobiography, “Wake Me When It’s Funny,” about the time, after he had become a television success, that he asked his parents what their dreams were, so he could make one come true. He went first to his father, who said he had always dreamed of having a white Cadillac. Marshall told him, “Okay, you’ve got it.”

Then I went to my mother and said, “Mom, I’m doing well, and I want to give you one of your dreams. Pop said his dream is to own a white Cadillac. What’s yours?”

Without a moment’s hesitation, she said, “My dream is that your father doesn’t get the white Cadillac.”

I thought of this anecdote when reading the transcript of the State Department background conference call earlier this week by “Senior State Department Official One” about the efforts, backed by the Obama administration, to have the successor Honduran government accept the “San Jose Accord” to bring Hugo Chavez pal Manuel Zelaya back as president:

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: Our understanding is — the main point that is facing all the resistance from the de facto government is a sentence that says: The return of President Zelaya to finish out his term.

QUESTION: Okay. And do — and did they propose anything? I mean, did the de facto government say, okay —

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: They proposed that he not return.

I am predicting that Zelaya will not get the white Cadillac.

A reporter asked Senior State Department Official One (SSDOO) if the U.S. might consider not recognizing the winner of the Honduran presidential election in November as a mechanism to pressure the Honduran government to accept the San Jose Accord. SSDOO said that, indeed, the State Department was reviewing that option, among others, although no determination had been made.

For the Obama administration to consider not recognizing the results of the Honduran election, simply to force Honduras to allow Zelaya to return to office for a few months, gainsaying the Honduran Supreme Court’s decision last week, must mean that the administration takes the situation quite seriously. It did not consider this option even in connection with the somewhat more suspect presidential election in Iran.