Pelosi Lies and Her Trip Is A Dud

[Care4all]

Pelosi didn't botch Israeli message to Syria; U.S. media did
In reports repeating false and baseless attacks on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) recent trip to Syria, major media outlets continue to omit an important fact that undermines those attacks. According to a report Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz published before Pelosi's visit to Syria, the real message Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert asked Pelosi to deliver to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad was that Israel has no plans to launch a pre-emptive military strike on Syria this summer. Three members of Pelosi's congressional delegation, including Pelosi herself, have since confirmed this was the message they received from Olmert. Yet outside of a single Associated Press report, major American news organizations have altogether ignored what appears to have been the essential element of Olmert's message, even as they reported a "clarification" by Olmert's office stating that Israel's policy toward Syria remained the same as it was before Pelosi's visit.

Before Pelosi had even returned to the United States, major media figures were issuing stinging criticism of her trip. The Washington Post editorial board opened the flood gates with an April 5 editorial titled "Pratfall in Damascus," which declared that Pelosi had "misrepresent[ed]" a message from Olmert to Assad. As evidence, the Post pointed to Pelosi's remark at an April 4 press conference that she had "communicate[d] a message from Prime Minister Olmert that Israel was ready to engage in peace talks," and an April 4 statement of "clarification" by Olmert's office that stated, "What was communicated to the U.S. House Speaker does not contain any change in the policies of Israel." Media figures representing other major news organizations such as CNN and Newsweek quickly echoed the Post, suggesting that Pelosi had "fumbled" Olmert's message and made "rookie mistakes" during her Syria trip.

The allegations that Pelosi distorted Olmert's message rest entirely on the premise that Pelosi failed to deliver the preconditions Israel has long set for negotiations with Syria -- that the Syrians end their support for Hamas and Hezbollah, two groups deemed terrorist entities by the Israeli government. Both Pelosi and the rest of her bipartisan seven-member delegation have disputed that charge, as Media Matters has noted. But more to the point, media outlets that have accused Pelosi of misrepresenting Israel's message ignore an essential fact: As blogger Joshua Micah Marshall detailed in an April 8 entry for the weblog TalkingPointsMemo.com, before Pelosi had arrived in Syria, Ha'aretz reported on April 3 that Israel had instructed Pelosi to deliver "a message of calm" to the Syrians, in order to avert "the possibility of a Syrian attack on the Golan Heights that will start as a result of a 'miscalculation' on the part of the Syrians, who may assume that Israel intends to attack them." From Ha'aretz:


this is lengthy and continued at.... http://mediamatters.org/items/200704170005

if anyone cares... to read another side of the story!

care

 

[Care4all]

I must be typing with invisible ink. I have stated, more than once, that any Republicans congresspersons who went to Syria for the purpose of conducting foreign policy without the express consent and/or appointment by the President, of State Dept as proxy, were just as wrong in doing so as Pelosi was.

I shouldn't have to qualify that with you. I can understand someone else who is letting her mouth flat outrun her mind because she doesn't know me and is trying to debate with her opinion, but you KNOW I'm not going to cut ANYONE any slack either way.

Hastert did the same thing back in the 90s with the head honcho in Columbia, and what he did was wrong. If this was the 90s, and Hastert had just made headlines for telling the Columbian head of state to just bypass the President and go straight to Congress, and the law was presented then as I have presented it now, I'd have said the exact same thing about him then as I am saying about Pelosi now, with one exception ....

Clinton did not have a standing order that Columbia would not be negotiated with. However, Hastert clearly went outside the legal limits of the Consitution telling a foreign head of state to bypass the Chief Executive.

And YOU HAVE YET to provide any of us on this board with ANY information about ANY foreign Policy that Nancy Pelosi instituted or negotiated on behalf of the USA or even on behalf of herself...with Syria.

(If you have provided this information can you lead me to the post number that contains a link to it?)


THIS... is WHY you are driving me nuts on this...you seem to be hanging on to something that NEVER OCCURRED, and I would like to know why?

Especially if you are as you claim, not a partisan person.... a level headed bloke, a really great guy, an honest ace.... yahdeedah....?

Care

 

[Gunny]

And YOU HAVE YET to provide any of us on this board with ANY information about ANY foreign Policy that Nancy Pelosi instituted or negotiated on behalf of the USA or even on behalf of herself...with Syria.

(If you have provided this information can you lead me to the post number that contains a link to it?)

Bullshit. Nancy Pelosi went to Syria to discuss foreign policy with Assad. Quit trying to ignore the wording of the law with that lame game of semantics. The last used the term "conduct". Discussing freign policy with a foreign head of state falls within the definition of "conduct."

So, the evidence was provided long before you decided to grace us with your presence.


THIS... is WHY you are driving me nuts on this...you seem to be hanging on to something that NEVER OCCURRED, and I would like to know why?

Especially if you are as you claim, not a partisan person.... a level headed bloke, a really great guy, an honest ace.... yahdeedah....?

Care

What's driving you nuts is you have presented yourself as everything you have accused me of ... a blind partisan hack. At least I haven't taken the roundabout route to call you a liar, as you have me.

The facts speak for themselves. You're apparently seeing only the ones you want to.

 

[Gunny]

What's driving you nuts is you have presented yourself as everything you have accused me of ... a blind partisan hack. At least I haven't taken the roundabout route to call you a liar, as you have me.

The facts speak for themselves. You're apparently seeing only the ones you want to.

Edit: I have posted the inks at least three times in this thread. All you have to do is go back a couple of pages.

 

[maineman]

Gunny...I appreciate what you say and acknowledge, again that I admire and respect your independence and your wisdom.

I guess, for me, it boils down to the difference between foreign relations and foreign policy. I do not KNOW what Nancy Pelosi told Assad. I cannot imagine that she suggested that she spoke with any authority for the United States. I cannot imagine that she suggested that the United States' foreign policy would change in any way if Assad changed his policy in any way. I cannot imagine that she negotiated anything with him. I cannot see where a meeting where she got to meet him, and got to listen to his point of view and allow him to listen to her point of view was actually conducting foreign affairs negotiations of any kind. President Bush meets with foreign dignitaries for grip and grin meetings all the time... most do not include the conduct of "foreign policy".....I don't think Pelosi's meeting with Assad did either, and since there are no transcripts of the meeting, neither of us can definitively prove our assumptions.

 

[Care4all]

Gunny...I appreciate what you say and acknowledge, again that I admire and respect your independence and your wisdom.

I guess, for me, it boils down to the difference between foreign relations and foreign policy. I do not KNOW what Nancy Pelosi told Assad. I cannot imagine that she suggested that she spoke with any authority for the United States. I cannot imagine that she suggested that the United States' foreign policy would change in any way if Assad changed his policy in any way. I cannot imagine that she negotiated anything with him. I cannot see where a meeting where she got to meet him, and got to listen to his point of view and allow him to listen to her point of view was actually conducting foreign affairs negotiations of any kind. President Bush meets with foreign dignitaries for grip and grin meetings all the time... most do not include the conduct of "foreign policy".....I don't think Pelosi's meeting with Assad did either, and since there are no transcripts of the meeting, neither of us can definitively prove our assumptions.

well said, except we DO HAVE 5 or 6 other congressmen, both republican and democrats that have stated what was said and done with pelosi and them in this meeting with the syrians, that backs up what i have said...no foreign policy was negotiated by pelosi on america's behalf..

 

[Care4all]

What's driving you nuts is you have presented yourself as everything you have accused me of ... a blind partisan hack. At least I haven't taken the roundabout route to call you a liar, as you have me.

The facts speak for themselves. You're apparently seeing only the ones you want to.

i disagree...there are NO FACTS showing that pelosi conducted foreign policy making or negotiations of usa foreign policy with syria that differed with our presidents, she did NOT break the law as you so adamently proclaimed as fact.

enough said....everyone around here seems to bow down to you, so i guess that's the que to just respectfully disagree with you! lol

care

 

[Gunny]

i disagree...there are NO FACTS showing that pelosi conducted foreign policy making or negotiations of usa foreign policy with syria that differed with our presidents, she did NOT break the law as you so adamently proclaimed as fact.

enough said....everyone around here seems to bow down to you, so i guess that's the que to just respectfully disagree with you! lol

care

You're STILL trying to play semantics. Conducting foreign policy is conducting foreign policy, and it doesn't matter who it agrees or disagrees with, or whether or not you want to call it "negotiating" or any other deflective term. Pelosi met with the head of state of a foreign nation to discuss -- which is "conducting" -- foreign policy.

Pelosi's action are in contradiction to the law. Period.

Nobody bows down to me, and I don't expect them to. At the same time, I don't expect someone to continue to argue against irrefutable evidence. The law is the law. I didn't write it. I merely posted the link.

Of course, you wouldn't consider that it's the facts, and not me, "everyone" is backing down to? You jumped on here with a bunch of assumptions/preconceived notions and haven't let up since.

You've tried from the beginning to make this about me and what-all you think is wrong with me. If you can't attack the argument, attack the credibility of the poster. That's hogwash plain and simple.

 

[Gunny]

Gunny...I appreciate what you say and acknowledge, again that I admire and respect your independence and your wisdom.

I guess, for me, it boils down to the difference between foreign relations and foreign policy. I do not KNOW what Nancy Pelosi told Assad. I cannot imagine that she suggested that she spoke with any authority for the United States. I cannot imagine that she suggested that the United States' foreign policy would change in any way if Assad changed his policy in any way. I cannot imagine that she negotiated anything with him. I cannot see where a meeting where she got to meet him, and got to listen to his point of view and allow him to listen to her point of view was actually conducting foreign affairs negotiations of any kind. President Bush meets with foreign dignitaries for grip and grin meetings all the time... most do not include the conduct of "foreign policy".....I don't think Pelosi's meeting with Assad did either, and since there are no transcripts of the meeting, neither of us can definitively prove our assumptions.

My intent, when I first started researching the law on tis matter, was not to hang Pelosi for anything. The black or white only, partisan extremists pushed me into that default position because I dared speak ill of one of their darlings.

I merely put the facts out, and the game of semantics immediately followed. IMO, most of the people engaged in this argument haven't bothered to read the law, they're just firing from the partisan hip.

I don't like Nancy Pelosi and make no secret of it. Neither do I like that gutless f-cktard Dennis Hastert, nor Newt Gingrich. Being an idiot is not exclusive to one political party or the other.

My personal opinion is she did it to upstage Bush, and let Assad know he had a sympathetic ear. I agree there are no facts to support that opinion, and I have not argued it.

My BIGGEST gripe, and the point I was at first trying to get to was best said by Abraham Lincoln, of who I an NOT any great fan, on June 16, 1858:

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention.

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.

We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated, with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation.

Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only, not ceased, but has constantly augmented.

In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed.

"A house divided against itself cannot stand."

I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.

This partisan bullshit has reached a point that the entire world knows we are a house divided, and it knows exactly which buttons to push to maintain the divide because WE TELL THEM HOW.

 

[Care4all]

My intent, when I first started researching the law on tis matter, was not to hang Pelosi for anything. The black or white only, partisan extremists pushed me into that default position because I dared speak ill of one of their darlings.

I merely put the facts out, and the game of semantics immediately followed. IMO, most of the people engaged in this argument haven't bothered to read the law, they're just firing from the partisan hip.

I don't like Nancy Pelosi and make no secret of it. Neither do I like that gutless f-cktard Dennis Hastert, nor Newt Gingrich. Being an idiot is not exclusive to one political party or the other.

My personal opinion is she did it to upstage Bush, and let Assad know he had a sympathetic ear. I agree there are no facts to support that opinion, and I have not argued it.

My BIGGEST gripe, and the point I was at first trying to get to was best said by Abraham Lincoln, of who I an NOT any great fan, on June 16, 1858:



This partisan bullshit has reached a point that the entire world knows we are a house divided, and it knows exactly which buttons to push to maintain the divide because WE TELL THEM HOW.

May I ask you...SINCE WHEN is coming to the DEFENSE of an innocent person being FALSELY ACCUSED of being a CRIMINAL like what is taking place with Pelosi... by a Gunny on a message board, is BEING partisan.

That's being ETHICAL imo....

and what YOU have done, CONVICTED pelosi without an indictment of the crime let alone a TRIAL... is downright arrogant and quite unethical and bearing false witness...so even unChristianlike....

So there....

That's what I think about this whole situation and with what you THINK of me.

Have a great evening!

care

 

[Gunny]

May I ask you...SINCE WHEN is coming to the DEFENSE of an innocent person being FALSELY ACCUSED of being a CRIMINAL like what is taking place with Pelosi... by a Gunny on a message board, is BEING partisan.

That's being ETHICAL imo....

and what YOU have done, CONVICTED pelosi without an indictment of the crime let alone a TRIAL... is downright arrogant and quite unethical and bearing false witness...so even unChristianlike....

So there....

That's what I think about this whole situation and with what you THINK of me.

Have a great evening!

care

Noce try, but you don't have a trial without doing the homework to see if you can FIRST. This is the homework. The fact that you consider yourself coming to the defense of the unjustly accused speaks volumes.

You would be incorrect and you've struck out. Go back to the bench. I am not being arrogant posting fact. Nor is posting facts unChristianlike nor bearing false witness. Appeals to emotionalism are wasted on me.

And you have a nice evening as well.