[T]hey break bread with terrorists and enemies of the United States. [Their] words and actions carry consequences for U.S. policy, and they certainly did our allies no favors last week. Instead of standing united with the president and Congress against the Syrian menace, [they] chose to needlessly divide us.
Oh, wait, no, I’m sorry. Turns out he’s talking about Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Syria three days after Rep. Frank Wolf visited as part of a congressional delegation. And that’s different somehow. In some way that he can’t actually explain. So he didn’t try.
Can you really not see the difference in significance between what some back-bencher in the minority party does versus what someone 2nd-in-line to the presidency does? Had she stayed home and the trip she took been led by Lantos or, say, Bobby Scott, then no one would have cared. It’s the fact that she’s a constitutional officer of such high rank that makes people question her judgment in the matter.
You’ve described why it is that Cantor is going after Pelosi — she’s a big target. None of that explains why what Pelosi did is wrong and what Wolf did is A-OK.
I can envision no way, under Cantor’s logic, in which it’s perfectly OK for one congressman to “break bread with terrorists” but, for another congressman, it is treasonous.
Isn’t Pelosi 3rd in line?
Didn’t the Iraq Study Group conclude that it’s in America’s best interest regarding Iraq to open dialogue with players in the region?
Ya know how when some foreign potentate dies the US administration in power will often send a representative? If it’s a really, really great friend, the President and First Lady will go. If it’s a lesser friend, the VP or perhaps the Sec. of State will be dispatched. But if it’s someone we really didn’t care for, then some mid-level bureaucrat from State will likely be the choice. The message is pretty clear: rank = prestige.
The separation of powers used by the United States government is well understood around the world. Ain’t no way that the Syrian government believes that either Rep. Pelosi or Rep. Frank Wolf speaks for anybody other than the bodies (or portions thereof) that they are speaking on behalf of.
Yeah, I agree with that, but I still say she’s muddying the waters of US policy and providing the Syrians with useful propaganda. I can’t believe you’d have been OK with Newt Gingrich leading some congressional delegation overseas in contravention of Clinton’s wishes.
Judge – Ironically, Republicans did much worse under Clinton. If I recall correctly, Hastert went to Columbia and told them to deal directly with Congress and ignore the administration.
You mean like when Newt traveled to China and spoke about Taiwan? Or when he went to Israel and spoke about the Palastinians?
I guess it’s just an amazing coincidence that the hostages held by Iran for 444 days were released minutes after Reagan was sworn in. No way that the Republican party was negotiating behind the back of the administration.
Columbia, China, Israel, Syria. Which one of these is not like the others? We’re talking about a country seeking to stifle the nascent democracy in Lebanon; a country supporting terrorist groups that attack Israel and (at least) turning a blind eye towards others in its territory that directly attack US troops and Iraqi civilians.
As for the Iranian hostages, it was the Ayatollah’s fear of Reagan and desire to spite Carter that led to their release on Jan. 20, 1981.
So what it seems you’re saying is that it is up to the Speaker to determine which of the administration’s wishes to follow, and which to ignore.
No, I don’t think I’m saying that at all. I think it’s within any congressperson’s (ugh) purview to visit friendly countries. But enemies? C’mon.
What you seem to be doing is criticizing Newt for visiting friendly countries while absolving Pelosi from criticism for visting enemies, or at least equating the two. But then, liberals were always better at equivalence than conservatives.
JS, you seem to be conceding that Rep. Wolf is in the wrong. Unless you forgot some qualifying clauses.
Ah, so I did. Should have said any Speaker or other high-ranking congressional leadership position. But to be honest, I wasn’t really thrilled with Wolf going to Syria either. I just think it’s less egregious than what Pelosi did given her status as Speaker.
I’m with the Judge on this one Waldo–there are both democracy problems and separation of power problems with the speaker of the house undercutting the stated foreign policy of the united states by holding herself out to speak for the US. Current US policy, rightly or wrongly, is not to deal with Syria–therefore, just showing up is undercutting–it’s bad when Wolf does it–it is exponentially worse when the Speaker does it because her office carries authority with it. Citizens of foreign countries may not understand the intricacies of US separation of powers.
The COngress has numerous tools at its disposal to influence foreign policy–but most involve votes, not a single congresswoman–elected by the people of her district and given a position of power by her caucus–acting alone.
Muddying the waters like this was bad when previous speakers did it and it’s bad now. The result is too many people purporting to speak for the government. Every time it happens it will undercut the separation of powers.
I agree with the Speaker’s goals–just not her means for accomplishing those goals.
I’ve included a snippet from the Supreme Court’s opinion in Curtis Wright below for your reference.
“Not only, as we have shown, is the federal power over external affairs in origin and essential character different from that over internal affairs, but participation in the exercise of the power is significantly limited. In this vast external realm, with its important, complicated, delicate and manifold problems, the President alone has the power to speak or listen as a representative of the nation. He makes treaties with the advice and consent of the Senate; but he alone negotiates. Into the field of negotiation the Senate cannot intrude; and Congress itself is powerless to invade it. As Marshall said in his great argument of March 7, 1800, in the House of Representatives, “The President is the sole organ of the nation in its external relations, and its sole representative with foreign nations.” Annals, 6th Cong., col. 613. The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations at a very early day in our history (February 15, 1816), reported to the Senate, among other things, as follows:
HN4″ The President is the constitutional representative of the United States with regard to foreign nations. He manages our concerns with foreign nations and must necessarily be most competent to determine when, how, and upon what subjects negotiation may be urged with the greatest prospect of success. For his conduct he is responsible to the Constitution. The committee consider this responsibility the surest pledge for the faithful discharge of his duty. They think the interference of the Senate in the direction of foreign negotiations calculated to diminish that responsibility and thereby to impair the best security for the national safety. The nature of transactions with foreign nations, moreover, requires caution and unity of design, and their success frequently depends on secrecy and dispatch. [**221] ” U.S. Senate, Reports, Committee on Foreign Relations, vol. 8, p. 24.
United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U.S. 304, 319 (U.S. 1936)
I have struggled to give a damn about this and just can’t manage. We tried doing everything the way that Bush and the neocons said by abandoning diplomacy and just hoping that waving a big stick around would get the world in order. Neat idea but it didn’t work.
So back to diplomacy now. The way that diplomacy works is that you send important people to countries that you don’t get along so well with and figure out how to get what you want from them. That’s what Pelosi is doing.
I agree completely on diplomacy. Just think that it has to happen from the executive branch.
But maybe you’re right…since it’s not happening how we’d like it, we might as well ignore the traditional roles of the branches.
I can’t accept that. There’s a recourse for things “not happening how we want”–elections, and we failed to oust the Bush policy when it counted in 2004. We spoke loudly in 2006 but the people we elected simply don’t (and shouldn’t) have the authority to influence policy in this way (they have lOTS of others)…
The Congress has to work with the tools it has–namely…Cut off funding!!! Oh wait, but that’s politically difficult…much easier to fly over there and speak for yourself where no votes have to be taken.
The world’s not going to end. Perhaps it’s good that she’s gotten the conversation started. I just hate the precedent–I feel as if it will happen every time a speaker or a minority leader disagrees with the executive branch. Bad stuff.
Oh, I can be persuaded (under the sole organ theory) that it’s wrong for congresscritters to meet with certain states in violation of executive branch policy. But I can’t be persuaded that there’s much daylight between Pelosi’s visit and Wolf’s. It’s a distinction without difference.
But I can’t be persuaded that there’s much daylight between Pelosi’s visit and Wolf’s. It’s a distinction without difference.
Fair enough–we can agree to disagree on that one. I would argue the Speaker comes across as a bigger deal both to foreign leaders and foreign citizens but you’re right that it’s a sliding scale.
It seems it would at least deserve a mention in Cantor’s rant. But since not a word of any Republican in the delegation appeared, the transparency of Cantor’s partisan spin is obvious.
Carrington,
Speakers have been making diplomatic trips like this for decades at least. The Union has held fast. If Pelosi was doing something specifically forbidden by law then I’d have a serious problem with it. As it stands, I think she’s doing a good job of walking a fine line between not breaking the rules governing Congress and obeying the clear will of the voters last November who are fed up with Bush’s policies and failures and want some grownups in Washington to counter him.
We have stirred up a whole hornets nest against us in the Middle East. We’re already stuck in one war that the American people don’t want and Bush continues to look for excuses to get us involved in others (such as Iran). Frankly, I’m just glad that there’s someone from the American government over there trying to smooth things over and prevent World War 3 from erupting. God knows I’m no fan of Nanci Pelosi but if she can convince the Syrians and any other middle eastern nations that might be watching that we are not all out for their heads, then this can only be a good thing. I’m hoping that when she leaves, factions within regional governments who would rather stay out of war with us will have her visit as domestic political ammunition in support of cooperation with America. ‘See, they’re not all as bad as Bush. They’re not all planning to bomb us into the stone age.’
Jack–
You raise good points–and I’ll take them. I agree that we can use all the good will we can get and that it’s nice to see diplomacy getting a fair shake.
My distinction between this trip and the trips that speakers have been taking for decades is that, in this case, the very act of stepping onto Syrian soil is contrary to stated US policy. Perhaps other speakers have taken trips where that could be said, but I’ll bet that they mostly went to various countries with whom the US had formal relations and said things that could have been construed as contrary to administration policy. This seemed like a bigger deal to me, but I’m prepared to be wrong on that point if history suggests otherwise. Obviously, as Waldo pointed out, the act of Wolfe stepping onto Syrian soil had the same effect–although I’d stand by my thought that the Speaker carries different weight than a Congressman in the eyes of the world.
I seem to be in the minority for the dem side, so I’ll let it lie at that.
“We have stirred up a whole hornets nest against us in the Middle East. We’re already stuck in one war that the American people don’t want and Bush continues to look for excuses to get us involved in others (such as Iran).”
I rather thought the hornet’s nest was well stirred-up prior to Bush entering the Oval Office.
As for looking for excuses to go to war with Iran, perhaps you’ve missed the fact that the mullahs are actively pursuing a nuclear weapon. There was a time not long ago when the left in America could be counted upon to decry nuclear weapons, but I guess that was only when crazies like Thatcher and Reagan had them. Now that paragons of reason like Ahmadinajad are only a couple of years away from getting them, the left wants to focus on serious matters like global warming, er, “climate change.” Worrying about nuclear weapons is so 80s.
Beyond that, Iran has provoked us repeatedlty since the Hostage Crisis (the one in 1979-80, not the one last week.) I think we’ve shown remarkable restraint in not taking the leash off the Navy and Air Force. Part of the reason for this restraint may be the notion that they (the mullahs in Tehran) actually want us to attack them in order to shore up shaky domestic support for the regime. But that’s just a theory.
We’re gonna have a showdown with them sooner or later. Better to do it before they have nukes.
Actually according to the most recent National Intelligence Estimate Iran is 10 years away from having a nuke. This estimate is the result of huge resources, unknown billions of dollars, and every spy agency under the US government’s control.
The drum banging, war trumpets and cowboy bravado that some in the government, and worse in the media, are showing will only provoke war. It is our responsibility to hold sanity, even while lunatics in Iran taunt us. This is precisely why reaching out in an appeal to more level-heads is not only a good strategy, but also one we can live with.
I miss the old conservatives, you know, the ones that advocated staying out of other country’s business, valued the stability of banana-republic dictators, and actually understood the limits of military power. Nowadays we seem to be awash with keyboard warriors and imperial theorists, while we search about for an XO that actually knows how negotiation works.
Like Jim Webb said about the use of Presidential diplomacy: “If he does, we will join him. If he does not, we will be showing him the way.” Congress sent Nancy.
Better get that war out of the way before, say, we are broke and have an even more broken Army, Air Force and Navy.
No time like the present for the killing fields. Wait, they are brown people? Better yet.
Smails,
I’m sure that straw man is a lot of fun to beat on, but most of us on the left aren’t saying what you think we’re saying.
I doubt many people are all for Iran’s nuclear program. I think what we’ve found out is that when the G.W. Bush administration tells us there’s a clear and present danger, we’d be best to ignore them. I think we’ve found out that this administration simply doesn’t have what it takes to mount an invasion and have it succeed. I opposed the war in Iraq when it began, and then for a long time, I believed that we’ve got to finish what we’ve started. Now I’ve been convinced that the whole situation is screwed up because this administration basically assumed stuff would just all work out, and they honestly don’t know how to get themselves out of it, and at this point, I’m not sure that anyone could fix it, though I’m open to ideas.
Also, I don’t think there was a serious movement on the left advocating a war on Thatcher’s Great Briton, or paradoxically on the United States itself under Reagan, so I don’t know why suddenly when those of us on the left aren’t under the same “turn the Middle East into a glass parkinglot!” nuclear holocaust battlecry as the posters on LittleGreenFootballs, we’re somehow changing our tune.
By your logic, we should’ve started a war with Russia at pretty much any point during the cold war. After all, we were on a collision course with them, and better to start a war when they have N nukes than when they have N+1 nukes.
None of this is of course to say that I support Iran in any way. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I think we do need to work to stop nuclear proliferation, but via diplomatic and economic methods. And if we do it deftly, we can do it in a way that blunts the extremist rhetoric within Iran.
I sincerely believe your desire to deal with the Iranian nuclear program through “diplomatic and economic methods” stems from the noblest motives. I just don’t think it will work.
After the invasion of Iraq in 2003, we let the Germans, French and Brits take the lead on enrichment and inspections with Iran. They were going to use their vaunted “soft power” to demonstrate to us naturally barbarous and warlike folk what was possible through negotiations backed by sanctions. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.
I’m not lusting for war with Iran. I just believe that a few days of bombing in tandem with stopping their exports of oil and imports of gasoline now is preferable to dealing with nuclear Iran 2 or 5 or 10 years from now. I genuinely fear a nuclear Iran and believe the life lost and damage resulting from a limited military engagement now will be less than what occurs with a nuclear Iran down the road – essentially, the old Munich argument.
You could made this statement in 2003, in equally good faith, swapping out just one “n” for one “q”.