Pratfall in Damascus
Nancy Pelosi's foolish shuttle diplomacy

Thursday, April 5, 2007; A16



HOUSE SPEAKER Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered an excellent demonstration yesterday of why members of Congress should not attempt to supplant the secretary of state when traveling abroad. After a meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, Ms. Pelosi announced that she had delivered a message from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that "Israel was ready to engage in peace talks" with Syria. What's more, she added, Mr. Assad was ready to "resume the peace process" as well. Having announced this seeming diplomatic breakthrough, Ms. Pelosi suggested that her Kissingerian shuttle diplomacy was just getting started. "We expressed our interest in using our good offices in promoting peace between Israel and Syria," she said.

Only one problem: The Israeli prime minister entrusted Ms. Pelosi with no such message. "What was communicated to the U.S. House Speaker does not contain any change in the policies of Israel," said a statement quickly issued by the prime minister's office. In fact, Mr. Olmert told Ms. Pelosi that "a number of Senate and House members who recently visited Damascus received the impression that despite the declarations of Bashar Assad, there is no change in the position of his country regarding a possible peace process with Israel." In other words, Ms. Pelosi not only misrepresented Israel's position but was virtually alone in failing to discern that Mr. Assad's words were mere propaganda.

Ms. Pelosi was criticized by President Bush for visiting Damascus at a time when the administration -- rightly or wrongly -- has frozen high-level contacts with Syria. Mr. Bush said that thanks to the speaker's freelancing Mr. Assad was getting mixed messages from the United States. Ms. Pelosi responded by pointing out that Republican congressmen had visited Syria without drawing presidential censure. That's true enough -- but those other congressmen didn't try to introduce a new U.S. diplomatic initiative in the Middle East. "We came in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascus is a road to peace," Ms. Pelosi grandly declared.

Never mind that that statement is ludicrous: As any diplomat with knowledge of the region could have told Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Assad is a corrupt thug whose overriding priority at the moment is not peace with Israel but heading off U.N. charges that he orchestrated the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri. The really striking development here is the attempt by a Democratic congressional leader to substitute her own foreign policy for that of a sitting Republican president. Two weeks ago Ms. Pelosi rammed legislation through the House of Representatives that would strip Mr. Bush of his authority as commander in chief to manage troop movements in Iraq. Now she is attempting to introduce a new Middle East policy that directly conflicts with that of the president. We have found much to criticize in Mr. Bush's military strategy and regional diplomacy. But Ms. Pelosi's attempt to establish a shadow presidency is not only counterproductive, it is foolish.

RWU-
Can I predict one response?...
Those damn Jews must have lied to poor Nancy.

This is why I really want literacy tests for those who hold office and those who vote.  I know it is discriminatory, but know what? Sometimes discrimination is a good thing.

Those damn Jews lied to poor Nancy.

Washington Post Misleads, Contradicts Own Reporting, To Attack Pelosi
The Washington Post editorial page today published a vicious editorial attacking Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), calling her “ludicrous” and describing her bipartisan trip to Syria as an “attempt to establish a shadow presidency.”

The editorial rests on two claims, both of which are baseless.

1) Pelosi passed an incorrect message from Israel to Syria. Pelosi said yesterday that she gave Syrian officials the message that Israel is “ready to engage in peace talks.” The Post falsely claims, “The Israeli prime minister entrusted Ms. Pelosi with no such message,” misinterpreting a statement from the Israeli Prime Minister’s office that simply reiterated its position that talks with Syria will not take place until Syria has taken steps to end its support for extremist elements. There is no evidence that Pelosi failed to communicate this message. In fact, Pelosi’s delegation specifically pressed the Syrian president “over Syria’s support for militant groups and insist[ed] that his government block militants seeking to cross into Iraq and join insurgents there.”

2) Pelosi is attempting to “establish a shadow presidency.” This claim is directly contradicted by the Post’s own reporting this morning, which states, “Foreign policy experts generally agree that Pelosi’s dealings with Middle East leaders have not strayed far, if at all, from those typical for a congressional trip.” Pelosi herself has “described the trip as little different than the visit paid to Syria the same week led by Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-VA),” and she went to great lengths to express her unity of purpose with President Bush on terrorism issues. The Post’s own reporting today also cites several instances of members of Congress meeting with foreign leaders during the past 30 years. As ThinkProgress noted yesterday, in contrast with Pelosi’s trip, previous congressional actions abroad attempted to directly undermine President Clinton.

Fred Hiatt and the Post editorial page get it wrong on Pelosi just like they got it wrong on the recent Iraq legislation, the U.S. Attorney scandal, the CIA leak investigation, the decision to invade Iraq, and on and on and on.

DAMASCUS, Syria: A U.S. Republican congressman met President Bashar Assad on Thursday, a day after a visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, spurning the White House policy of isolating the Syrian leadership.

Congressman Darrell Issa of California said U.S. President George W. Bush had failed to promote the dialogue that is necessary to resolve disagreements between the United States and Syria.

"That's an important message to realize: We have tensions, but we have two functioning embassies," Issa told reporters after separate meetings with Assad and Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem.

Syria will remain an ever-threat to peace in the region until someone get the balls to nuke them... (And with dems running our country, it sure as hell won't be us...)

still homicidally insane.

-- Modified on 4/5/2007 10:07:38 PM

But, of course, that would require a psychopath as a leader, and Bush isn't that.  

Somebody's keeping the reigns on Cheney, though.

Really, looking for the moral comeuppance here would is expected, but pay attention to "clarifications" that come out whenever a diplomatic announcement is made any time.  

To expect people to let the president perform his foreign relation duties is proper.  To moralize about it when this is the worst presidency ever is just foolish.  And does anybody recall now  when Congressman Jake Garn visited Saddam Hussein  during the Kuwaiti crisis, and came back saying Saddam was really good guy?  Almost the kind of person you'd have a beer with?  

This is not the only time a Congressmen has visited a foreign country, and Pelosi's "announcement" is embarrassing only to conservative who were embarrassed by it to begin with.

Nancy Pelosi is a TRAITOR.  She violated the constitution.  She can't go abroad and conduct foreign policy.  It's against the constitution.  She must be IMPEACHED.  She needs to be thrown out of congress and thrown into jail.
Syria is our enemy. Syria is getting US soldiers killed and Pelosi goes over there against POTUS' admonishment.

She is really stupid too.  She said some dumb things.  I think she said something about women in the US finally having a female speaker of the house----IN SAUDI ARABIA?!!!! Females in Saudi Arabia aren't even allowed to drive cars!!! And get their head s chopped off for violating their stupid muslim rules.

I bet the saudi gremlins were fantasizing about what it would be like to chop off her head right while she was talking cause the saudis are a bunch of cowards and perverts.

Second -
HE'S NOT THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE!!!

Pelosi VIOLATED the Logan Act!!!

A felony.

removed as speaker of the house. For sure. And impeached and thrown in jail.

I guess he was there with absolutely no diplomatic function?

But he's still often amusing as hell.

Rep. Issa was born in Lebanon?

Elected to the US House Of Representatives?

And dares to challenge the Israel-first policies of Bush, Cheney and the Neocons?

Man, what's next?  A hard-headed and clear-sighted pursuit of US foreign policy intersts w/o regard to the endless dramas of Israel and it daily multiple emergencies?

What a concept?

Imagime if that was possible.

they should be impeached, put in jail, burned at the stake, drawn and quartered, and made to go stand in the corner.  Whereas if a Conservative breaks the law, that's OK because everybody should know that GOD is on their side.

I think he's an attorney, and he could tell us when the last successful prosecution under the Logan Act occurred.  [Yeah, I could Google, but I'm too lazy].  No doubt he'd reproduce the relevant sections of the US Code, and show us where and where not a case could or could not be made.

Geezer, I remember tons of talk about trying Jane Fonda for Logan Act violations in 1972, and nothing ever came out of it.  And nothing NP said or did comes close to Fonda's words and deeds in North Viet-Nam.

As a layman, let me take a guess.  NP's trip, distasteful as it was to you, is clearly relevant to her position and duties as leader of the House.  She met a few people, had a few discussions, hit a few relevant capitals, formed a few impressions, and no doubt will be debrief upon returning to DC.  She even passed on a message of no doubt stupefying generality and vagueness from Israel to Syria.  At no point did she represent herself as having authority to enter into any  official binding agreements with any party on behalf of the US gov't.  That's what's forbidden in the Logan Act.  Sorry, no dice.

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