http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/50261/#morePelosi's Syria visit highlights GOP hypocrisy
Barbara O'Brien: Right wingers can't make a consistent argument over Pelosi's trip to Syria.
The Right continues to work itself into higher and higher pitches of hysteria over Nancy Pelosi's visit to Syria. Today the Wall Street Journal editorial page is shrieking that Pelosi committed a felony by traveling to Syria. The story is that Rep. Pelosi violated the Logan Act.
If in fact Speaker Pelosi violated this Act (which has been on the books in one form or another since the John Adams Administration) then a large part of Congress, living and dead, also violated it. However, the only Logan Act indictment ever occurred in 1803 -- the case involved a Kentucky newspaper that advocated the western states secede from the Union and form a separate nation allied with France -- but no prosecution followed. In all these years not one American has ever been convicted of violating the Logan Act.
One wonders how many Wall Street Journal staffers were put to work finding some obscure law Pelosi might have violated.
The Righties have decided that the President has sole authority to talk to foreign governments. But Scott Lilly writes at the Center for American Progress:
As the White House quite rightly points out, any attempt to conduct diplomacy, speak in behalf of the United States government, or signal a new policy toward a foreign nation, is a violation of the constitutional prerogatives of the president. But the oath of office that the president must take requires that he “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution,” not just when it is in the interest of the presidency, but when there is infringement of the constitutional authorities of any of the three branches.
Neither Kolbe nor Pelosi were impinging on the authority of the executive branch or attempting to do the job assigned to the president. They were merely attempting to fill the role which the Constitution has assigned to Congress.
Members of Congress are charged with the increasingly heavy responsibility of giving or withholding the resources necessary to conduct our nation’s military, diplomatic, and economic relations around the world. To do so, they have an obligation under the Constitution to know what challenges face the country, what the various options are for meeting those challenges, and how effectively the executive branch is performing in pursuing the options they have chosen.
Congress cannot meet that obligation by sitting behind their desks in the Capitol and receiving briefings (from the executive branch) on how effective their strategies are or how well they are executing them. They need to get out and kick the tires.
Despite the inference that the White House has tried to draw concerning Pelosi’s trip to Syria, the administration has failed to produce any evidence that she did or said anything in her meetings in Damascus that went beyond her role or responsibilities as a member of Congress. Indeed, her schedule was arranged by the U.S. Embassy there and diplomatic personnel representing the president were present at all times. It is certain the White House would have known instantly had such a breech of conduct had occurred.
Pelosi, who served for years as the ranking member of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, knows the drill. She can ask questions, listen to observations, and get a measure of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as a person—all of which could be invaluable in grappling with the legislative choice the Congress must make in the months ahead. But she did not go to Syria to speak on behalf of President Bush or the United States government, and the Syrians are far too savvy in the ways of American politics to believe her if she had tried.
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