"Pelosi Goes to Syria, Press Loses Mind"

[Pirate Smile]

Matthew Yglesias:

Pelosi Goes to Syria, Press Loses Mind

Joe Klein:

The Wall Street Journal editorial page, with typical judiciousness, gets the Pelosi trip quite wrong. First, George Logan was not a member of the Congress when he made his "pacifist" trip to France. (He was elected to the Senate three years later, in 1801.) Second, Pelosi did not make the trip to negotiate with Assad, but to talk with him. Third, this is not a "wartime" situation--in fact, we continue to have diplomatic relations with Syria. Fourth, as others have noted, numerous Republican members of Congress have gone to speak with Assad. In fact, it was a Republican, Chris Shayes, who first told me that I should go over and interview Assad. Fifth, the media coverage of this on CNN and elsewhere has been abysmal. (Do you think CNN would repeatedly call itself the best political team on television if it actually was?)

Something about the utter absurdity of the press reaction to this trip seems to me to have really gotten to people. Time and CNN are, of course, part of the same company. And Washington Post op-ed columnist Eugene Robinson is here on Hardball rightly dissing the Post's inane Pelosi-bashing editorial. I mean, the WSJ editorial page is in the business of vicious smears, but the Post and CNN are really unusually off the rails here. On the other hand, the Post's been dabbling in neoconservatism for years now and CNN, too, decided a while back that it would rather be Fox-lite than a news channel.

What really baffled me is the pea-brained proceduralism of something like USA Today's editorial on the subject holding that Pelosi "violated a long-held understanding that the United States should speak with one official voice abroad — even if the country is deeply divided on foreign policy back home." This rule has, simply put, never stood. Members of congress have always voiced their opinions on foreign policy questions. Foreigners have always listened more to the president since he has, you know, all this power. Worse: "smiling photos of Pelosi and the Syrian president convey the unspoken message that while the U.S. president is unwilling to talk with Syria, another wing of the government is." This is nonsense on its face. The problem with Pelosi's decision to talk to Assad was that it sent the message that Pelosi is willing to talk to Assad? They even go on to agree with Pelosi on the merits that Bush's Syria-freeze policy is stupid. So what's the problem?

It's as if they think that maybe if we all close our eyes and just believe hard enough, Bush will suddenly become a non-terrible president and so there's no need to actually challenge his policies and doing things that puncture the bubble of faith are positively harmful.

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/04/pelosi_goes_to_syria_press_los/#comment

[saltpoint]

1. I liked Nancy Pelosi from early days and like her a whole lot better now

after the trip to Syria.

She's the grown-up willing to listen and talk with the bad guys.

Dubya's the screaming 2-year old throwing a fit.

You go, Nancy.

[enough already]

2. Bush, Cheney and Rove are feeding the press this load of wank

When the 'one voice' of the country is the chimp, 'a little treason' is a good thing.

[madeline_con]

3. Andthere's the fact that Pelosi's a Dem.

A lot of dust being kicked up for that reason alone. I wonder how much is simply sexism.

[Melynn]

4. What a vicious attack

The neo-cons are really upset by Pelosi's trip.

[orpupilofnature57]

5. Anything but Shrub , this is becoming too obvious.

I wonder how the speaker feels now, as opposed to when "Impeachment wasn't on the table".

[ShortnFiery]

6. When our Military begins to "break down" sooner rather than later.

Not even the whorish M$M will be able to bolster the case for endless war mongering.

Sadly, it will take such a crisis to rear it's ugly head because all the corporations comprising The Military Industrial Complex and their enablers (the M$M etc.) are making a KILLING. :grr:

The outrageous profits are pouring in and the greed for war profiteering is showing no signs of abating. However, WHEN the troops say "No MORE!" it's going to get interesting.

IMO, that (the breakdown of order and discipline within The Military) is the ONLY event that can get the TRUE attention (leading to ACTION) of our gutless Congressional Representatives.

How sad. :cry:

[Cobalt-60]

7. Has everyone forgotten 1968 and 1980 already?

Republicons can't get on their knees before "the enemy" fast enough.
Nixon was working with the North Vietnamese to undermine his election opponent in 1968.
Reagan and company were stimulating the organs of the Iranian Radicals in 1980 to facilitate his unfortunate election.
The speaker was on a diplomatic mission to a nation with whom we are at peace.
And, it would appear, so were the 'cons that visited Assad the day before. (I'll never believe they were trying to do anything but sabotage the speaker's meeting, but can't prove it.)
The Fascist Lapdog media has become less than worthless.

[rainy]

8. this is just an example of what goes on all the time. It's just that as they

keep putting out those talking points more and more people are starting to see. Or, maybe it was so blatant that one could not ignore the bullshit. Had it been not so obvious, like if republicans had not just days before gone to Syria this smear would have stuck. Goes to show you how easily they get away with the smearing.

[StefanX]

9. "Pelosi 100% correct on Syria..." while "Bush is extreme... radical... deviant..."

With the administration of the most failed and catastrophic national-security policy in history in full-throated attack demeaning the Speaker, and mainstream media as usual parroting the attack with minimal response for the first 24 hours, it is time to make this case:

The Speaker is absolutely right and it is important to consider exactly why.

... She put pressure on Syria to do exactly what the president claims he wants Syria to do. She put pressure on Syria to do exactly what Israel wants Syria to do.

What the Speaker did was advance the goals the president publicly says he favors, unless in truth the president prefers yet another unwise war to what he claims he wants diplomatically.
...

The policy of George W. Bush is deviant, extreme, radical and unprecedented in the history of Republican and conservative U.S. presidents, indeed of all previous U.S. presidents.

More here...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x598597