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Her enemy is right here at home

By Mark I Posted in Democrats | Spotlight Blogs — Comments (21) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Fresh off her oh!-so-successful trip to the Middle East, Speaker of the House, and America’s Mother-in-Law™, Nancy Pelosi now says she may schedule a return visit. Only this time, she will not be playing in off-off Broadway locations like Damascus and Riyadh, she’s looking to play the big time in Tehran, Iran. That’s right, Speaker Pelosi would be open to paying a personal visit to America’s enemy number one, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and performing her one grandma diplomacy and dialogue show for him personally. Now, she’s not saying that outright, but she’s not exactly closing the door.

Read on…

Pelosi’s interest in visiting Iran was revealed in a press conference held yesterday in her home district of San Francisco.

The Democratic speaker from San Francisco and [Rep. Tom] Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, were asked at a news conference in San Francisco on Tuesday whether on the heels of their recent trip to the Middle East they would be interested in extending their diplomacy in the troubled region with a visit to Iran.

"Speaking just for myself, I would be ready to get on a plane tomorrow morning, because however objectionable, unfair and inaccurate many of (Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's) statements are, it is important that we have a dialogue with him,'' Lantos said. "Speaking for myself, I'm ready to go -- and knowing the speaker, I think that she might be.''

Pelosi did not dispute that statement, and noted that Lantos -- a Hungarian-born survivor of the Holocaust -- brought "great experience, knowledge and judgment" to the recent bipartisan congressional delegation trip to Israel, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia in addition to Syria.

"I find the president of Iran's remarks to be so repulsive that they are outside the circle of civilized human behavior,'' Pelosi said, referring to Ahmadinejad's past comments that Israel should be wiped off the face of the map and his questioning of the existence of the Holocaust.

"But a person of Mr. Lantos' stature and personal experience is saying that -- even as a Holocaust survivor and even recognizing the outrageous statements of the president of Iran -- it's important to have dialogue. I think that speaks volumes." (my emphasis)

Seems to me that Lantos wasn’t just speaking for himself, he was speaking for the Speaker.

Meanwhile, back in that backwater capital of Washington DC, Pelosi’s enemy number one, President Bush, has called for Congressional leaders to visit the White House next week. Pelosi has refused. Saying that the president was inviting Democratic Congressional leaders to, “accept without any discussion the bill that he wants,” and calling that, “not worthy of the concerns of the American people,” she joined her Senate counterpart, Sen. Harry Reid, in rejecting out of hand the invitation from the President of the United States.

The bill the president wants to discuss is the emergency war funding supplemental. The bill provides funding for ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and would prevent the Pentagon from being forced to curtail funding for training and equipment maintenance in order to continue to fund troops in harm’s way in those two countries. Pelosi and Reid have placed a precondition on any meeting with the president over the issue. They say that the president must be willing to consider a deadline for troop withdrawal from Iraq before a meeting can take place. Otherwise, they say, there is nothing to talk about.

But for Ahmadinejad, there are no such preconditions. It is important to have a dialogue with him, “even recognizing the outrageous statements,” he has made. No retractions necessary. In fact, one gets the impression that the more outrageous his statements get, the more Pelosi will think it important to talk to Ahmadinejad. If Pelosi truly believed that Ahmadinejad’s statements are so repulsive that they are, “outside the circle of civilized human behavior,” why leave the door open to a civilized act like having a meeting with him? Why would she grace his country by even considering a visit at the same time she is refusing to meet with the president of her own country over funding for troops who are the targets of Iranian intelligence units in Iraq?

Two reasons: because for all her posturing, she doesn’t really care about the troops; and because America’s security isn’t as important to her as making President Bush look bad. There is no other reason for the Speaker of the House to meet independently with America’s enemies, especially an enemy who is actively seeking to kill United States troops, except to undermine the Administration that is waging war against that enemy. It doesn’t even matter what she may say to Ahmadinejad. Nor does it matter what the outcome of such a meeting may be. She could parrot all of the Administration’s talking points and positions. She could emerge with no substantive agreement. The very fact that the meeting took place at all legitimizes the enemy, their tactics, and the need for more meetings. And that undermines the strategy the Administration is pursuing of trying to isolate Iran. Worse, it emboldens Iran to be more aggressive in its attacks against our troops.

So, Speaker Pelosi, while you consider your next flight halfway around the world to meet the president of Iran, President Bush sits one and a half miles down Pennsylvania Avenue, waiting for you to call on him. Pick your president, Speaker. Pick which world leader is worthy of your road show paying a visit. Is it the one trying to protect America and provide for her troops with the funding they need, or the one trying to harm America and kill her troops with slugs of molten copper? Choose wisely, Speaker. It’s not just your base in the audience now. It’s the whole world. You’re playing on the big stage.