In a feed from REUTERS, Yahoo News reports:

President Bashar al-Assad met a Republican member of the U.S. Congress on Thursday, a day after Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ended a visit to Syria that was criticized by the White House. The official news agency said the meeting between Assad and Darrell Issa, a member of the House Committee on Intelligence, discussed ways to improve relations between Washington and Damascus.

If this is not evidence of the paranoia of the extremists on the right than I am not sure what might be classified as evidence. Nancy Pelosi, constitutionally third in line for succession to the presidency, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Democrat travels to Syria to engage with Syrian President Assad in discussions that may prove fruitful in the pursuit of a lasting peace in the Middle East and she is roundly criticized by the Bush administration. But, when Darrell Issa, a 4th term congressman from California, does the very same thing the silence from the White House is deafening. Where is Bush now? Where is Cheney, now? Where is the right wing blogosphere now? How is it that when a Democratic leader in the house takes reasonable steps to engage in the political life of the nation she is portrayed as no less than Satan himself but when a Republican back bencher does precisely the same thing not a sound can be heard from the hecklers. Perhaps it is time to stop the vitriolic nature of American politics, to begin to find a common ground from which to conduct ourselves in the world. That won’t happen until we are, once again, able to talk without shouting here at home.

Less than 655 days left in this administration’s tenure. Can we survive that long?

read more | digg story

Vice President Dick Cheney accused U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday of “bad behavior” on her Middle East trip, saying she bungled a message for Syria’s president that was later clarified by Israel.

Cheney harshly criticized Pelosi’s visit to Syria this week and declared in an interview, “The president is the one who conducts foreign policy, not the speaker of the House.”

Of all people to complain about Speaker Pelosi’s Middle Eastern trip! Cheney, one of the war profiteers, is, of course, correct that the president is the one who is supposed to conduct foreign policy–with the advice and consent of the Senate, a constitutional barrier the president no longer has in his back pocket. Bush’s idea of foreign policy seems to be more or less–more troops, more money, more bombs, more deaths, more destruction –less talk, less truth, less democracy, less trust among our remaining friends. The Bush more or less pursuit of foreign policy seems to be no policy at all; rather it appears to be one new strategy for success supplanted by another leading to failure and more still failure; a seat of one’s pants approach to foreign policy. For Cheney, and architect of the Bush non-policy (a colleague of mine disagrees and calls the Iraq policy the first Oedipal War (after all, Saddam did try “to kill my daddy!”), to complain about one who is constitutionally third in line for the presidency seeking meaningful discussions with those with whom we might disagree is simply disingenuous.

read more | digg story