Power grab? Give me a break. Congressmen have been going on overseas fact-finding trips for as long as the Republic has existed. It wasn't a "diplomatic mission". She doesn't need the President's permission. The President doesn't need any help undermining his foreign policy in the region. He's doing bad enough all by himself. Speaker Pelosi made no promises on behalf of Israel. She accurately presented their position, which they confirmed, adding only that their position hasn't changed.
Ms Ross' criticism of the trip might sound a little less contrived and partisan if she made even passing mention of the fact that Republican Congressmen also visited Syria this week, both before and after Speaker Pelosi's trip. If anyone is making a political issue of Speaker Pelosi's trip, it's the Republicans themselves. If anyone is undermining American foreign policy, it's critics like Tara Ross who seek to score domestic political points on foreign policy matters.
Perhaps what galls Ms Ross the most, Speaker Pelosi showed respect to her hosts by wearing a headscarf! Read other posts by the right wing chorus on Dallas Blog and you might have predicted that they would praise someone for paying respect to traditions that used to hold sway even in America a generation or two ago, when women routinely wore hats and always covered their heads in church. The Bible teaches: "Every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head." You might have predicted that but you would be wrong. Apparently, tradition is not praiseworthy when it's a Democratic woman who exhibits common courtesy. Inconsistency, even perhaps rank hypocrisy, on the part of the right wing... again.
4 comments:
How about those photos of Laura "What Stop Sign?" Bush wearing a headscarf on some of her foreign visits?
BTW, Dallas Blog apears to have disabled comments. Figures.
You mean like this White House photo of the First Lady wearing a headscarf in a Muslim holy shrine in 2005? ;-)
P.S. Yes, Dallas Blog comments are disabled, with no explanation. Perhaps they'll come back. Or perhaps the publishers just tired of having their right wing "news" and opinions so quickly refuted by alert Dallas Blog readers.
Ed -- Tara Ross is only continuing her history of nonsensical editorials. I wonder if she found former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's trip to the Middle East during the Clinton Administration in which he publicly strongly critized Clinton's foreign policy in the region offensive as well? As to Dallas Blog, they should change the name if they are no longer allowing comments (which I too noticed). They are no longer a blog.
The ironic thing is that there are valid reasons to question Speaker Pelosi's trip to Syria. It's just that Tara Ross's criticism is so partisan and hypocritical (for reasons you and farinata x point out) that it can't be taken seriously.
P.S. Call me naive, but I keep thinking that Dallas Blog will soon turn commenting back on. That whole site has been administered amateurishly from the beginning, so it wouldn't surprise me if they can't change the skin of the site and restore all services in less than a week or two.
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