Talking to Syria is treason! Pelosi's visit undermined the U.S. effort to isolate those terrorist Arabs! The Democrats are . . . wait, what? The Secretary of State is meeting with the Syrian foreign minister? Secretary Rice asked Syria for help??
Well, then.
After all, I read WaPo, I watched CNN, so I know Pelosi was killing our foreign policy! The media told me so. So is Rice a traitor, or was Pelosi actually doing the right thing? Even, I dunno, helpful to U.S. interests?
In all seriousness, I applaud Democratic leaders for doing the right thing even in the face of massive stupidity from Republicans and the media. As the Times reports,
In April, the White House sharply criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat of California, for visiting Damascus and meeting with President Bashar al-Assad, even going so far as to call the trip "bad behavior," in the words of Vice President Dick Cheney.
But less than a month later Ms. Rice walked through the cavernous hallways of a conference center in this desert resort town today and into the Sun Room to sit down with Mr. Moallem. An excited buzz went through the throngs of diplomats milling around. After the meeting, Mr. Moallem was mobbed by reporters and camera crews, while Ms. Rice quickly escaped back to her hotel.
"This is a marked improvement in the administration's ostrich policy approach, and a tacit admission of how wrong it was last month in criticizing the Speaker of the House and congressional colleagues, including myself, for going to Damascus," Representative Tom Lantos, Democrat of California, said in a statement.
Just a month or so after Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with senior Syrian government officials, and was labeled a traitor by Republicans for visiting "a terror state," US Secretary of State Condi Rice is now planning to meet with senior Syrian government officials. Imagine that.
So does Pelosi get credit for the breakthrough in relations, or is Condi a traitor too?
