REPUGS VISITING SYRIA...MORE BUSHEVIK DEFECTORS?

Pelosi, in Defiance of Bush, Seeks Syria Dialogue

By Laura Litvan

April 4 (Bloomberg) -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she gave Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a message of peace from Israel during talks held today over the objections of President George W. Bush.

Pelosi said in a televised news conference in the Syrian capital that she was ``determined that the road to Damascus would be the path to peace.''

She conveyed a message from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that his country is ready to engage in peace talks, and Assad gave assurances of his willingness to participate, Pelosi said.

Bush yesterday criticized the trip as ``counterproductive,'' saying it undermines U.S. efforts to isolate Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Vice President Dick Cheney, in an interview today with ABC News, said Assad has been ``isolated and cut off because of his bad behavior and the unfortunate thing about the speaker's visit is it sort of breaks down that barrier.''

Pelosi's talks with Assad and her legislative efforts to force Bush to end the war in Iraq demonstrate the Democrats' determination to challenge Bush administration policies that they say were repudiated by voters in the November election.

Some congressional Republicans support Pelosi's diplomatic overture. Republican Representative David Hobson of Ohio is one of six members of Congress traveling with her. Three other Republican representatives made a separate visit to Syria this week over the objections of the White House.


Republican Representatives Frank Wolf of Virginia, Joseph Pitts of Pennsylvania and Robert Aderholt of Alabama said in a statement this week that while they support Bush's Iraq policy, they also believe that ``there should be an aggressive diplomatic effort.''

Pelosi, 67, is following the suggestion of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which said last year that the U.S. should engage Iran and Syria to help stabilize Iraq, her spokesman said.

Bush, at a White House press conference yesterday, rejected that recommendation because the administration considers Syria a state sponsor of terrorism through its support of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Hamas.

Lee Hamilton, a co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, said he supports the trip because ``the policy of not talking to Syria has not worked.''

Not `Capitulation'

``I do not think conversation is capitulation or talking is appeasement,'' said Hamilton, a former Democratic representative from Indiana.

Pelosi said her delegation brought up the abduction of Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah and Hamas with Assad. Assad offered ``suggestions on how we could proceed toward getting those people freed,'' Pelosi said, the Associated Press reported.

Pelosi said the delegation also ``expressed our concern about Syria's connections'' to militant groups and discussed the issue of fighters slipping across the Syrian border into Iraq, AP said.

Bush said Pelosi's meeting with Assad lets Syrian officials believe they're part of the mainstream. Assad's government has done ``little to nothing'' to rein in the militant groups and has aided the movement of foreign fighters from Syria into Iraq, he said.

Took Control

The trip is Pelosi's second to the Middle East since Democrats took control of the House in January. Pelosi visited Israel before Syria, and Olmert has told reporters he asked Pelosi to carry a message to Assad that his nation will engage in talks with Syria if Syria backs away from its support of terrorist groups.

Pelosi this week also traveled to Lebanon and met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Pelosi, a California Democrat who is second in line to the presidency after Cheney, is the highest-ranking American to visit Syria since Colin Powell went there as secretary of state in May 2003.

Last month, the U.S. attended a conference on Iraq that Syria and Iran joined. The meeting marked the first time since the war began that U.S. officials met in Baghdad with representatives of Syria and Iran to discuss Iraq's future.

Direct Talks

The Bush administration has accused Syria of fomenting sectarian violence in Iraq and aiding attacks on U.S. troops there. The U.S. also blamed Syria for the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

Congressional leaders have previously bucked a president on overseas trips, in some cases even presidents in their own party, said Don Ritchie, associate historian for the U.S. Senate.

Former Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman William Fulbright, an Arkansas Democrat, clashed with President Lyndon Johnson over the Vietnam War and over a decision to send U.S. troops to the Dominican Republic in 1965 to intervene in a civil war. Johnson, in response, withdrew an offer to let Fulbright use a military plane on one trip to Southeast Asia, Ritchie said.

``Johnson made him fly commercial, which was a lot longer flight,'' Ritchie said. Fulbright's staff sent him off on the long journey with reading material on U.S. policies in Southeast Asia, and he returned an even stronger foe of Johnson's positions, Ritchie said.

Bushevik defectors?

Maybe not...


Did White House Privately Back House GOPers' Trip To Syria While Bashing Pelosi?

April 03, 2007 -- 07:39 PM EST
Let's see if all the big news outlets who lavished so much coverage on the White House's attack on Nancy Pelosi for her trip to Syria have any time for this.

It's well known by now that even as the White House was slamming Pelosi for her Syria trip GOP House members were making their own trip to Syria. This has drawn lots of attention already.

But check this out: It now looks like the White House might have actually been helping these House Republicans arrange their trip to Syria at the same time they were criticizing Pelosi for going there! Who's the source of this allegation? The chief of staff to one of the GOP Congressmen who went to Syria, that's who!

Take a look at this story from Pennsylvania's Lancaster Intelligencer Journal:

While U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's upcoming visit to Syria has caused the White Houe to bristle, a little-publicized rendezvous took place Sunday between Syria's president and Lancaster County's congressman.
And though Bush administration officials have been criticizing Pelosi, it's not clear what role the White House and the U.S. Department of State played when U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts and two other Republican congressmen met with Syrian President Bassar Assad.

Pitts is a Chester County Republican who represents Lancaster County.

Gabe Neville, Pitts' chief of staff, said Monday the conference between Assad and the three Republicans was intended to be "low profile."

"It was done in cooperation with the administration," he said.


Maybe I'm missing something, but the chief of staff to this Republican Congressman who went to Syria stated unequivocally that this trip was "done in cooperation with the administration." That would be the very same administration that has spent days and days attacking Pelosi for doing the same thing -- attacks that the big news orgs have eagerly spent a great deal of time and resources amplifying.

It's unclear what this GOP chief of staff's description of "cooperation" between these members of Congress and the administration means in practice. It could end up amounting to nothing at all. But it's certainly worthy of follow-up questions, wouldn't you agree?