Pelosi, who met in Damascus with Syrian President Bashar Assad over the objections of US President George W. Bush, said she brought a message to Assad from Olmert saying that Israel was ready for peace talks.
“We were very pleased with the reassurances we received from the president [Assad] that he was ready to resume the peace process. He was ready to engage in negotiations for peace with Israel,” Pelosi said after meeting Assad.
She said the meeting with the Syrian leader “enabled us to communicate a message from Prime Minister Olmert that Israel was ready to engage in peace talks as well.”
According to officials in the Prime Minister’s Office, however, this was not what transpired during her meeting with Olmert.
The officials said Olmert had told Pelosi that he thought her trip to Damascus was a mistake, and that when she asked – nevertheless – whether he had a message for Assad, Olmert said Syria should first stop supporting terrorism and “act like a normal country,” and only then would Israel be willing to hold discussions.
The first part of that message, the officials said, was lost in what was reported from Damascus on Wednesday.
See also WaPo. They aren’t pleased.
In contrast to the coverage McCain’s visit to Iraq received, Pelosi receives much kinder treatment.
Assad’s been trying to play his empty “peace process” card for months, because he’s facing an international murder rap for killing Rafiq Hariri, and because he wants to put Lebanon back in his hip pocket. If he can get the Speaker of the House to play the dupe on his behalf, that works for him. In fact, just the footage of their meeting helps him, because it suggests that his isolation is ending. The EU has been frustrated with him, and the Arab League may have failed to close a deal with him on the paralysis of Beirut, and his Arab neighbors may have stopped trusting him long ago, but hey, he’s still got some people willing to try to help him out of a jam: Tehran, Hezbollah, and Nancy Pelosi. I mean, why should the US be content with merely pulling out of Iraq in defeat when it can kiss Syria’s butt as well?
So after Pelosi stopped talking, then what happened? All the stories that I’ve seen about Pelosi’s embarrassing amateurism are perfectly straightforward accounts of what she did and what she said, with a little underplayed regional context. Where’s the smartass coverage of Pelosi’s visit? Where are the telling juxtapositions? Where’s all the snark when we need it? I can’t find any of it.
The Washington Post also has a very good editorial on this.
w3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040402306_pf.html
So like if she goes to darfur can someone buy her as a slave?
Hey, The Washington Post is against her. So is the Baltimore Sun. But some people are all for her assumption of the presidency of the United States. The terrorists:
JERUSALEM – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit today to Syria – in which she called for dialogue with Damascus – was “brave” and “very appreciated” and could bring about “important changes” to America’s foreign policy, including talks with “Middle East resistance groups,” according to members of terror organizations here whose top leaders live in Syria.
One terror leader, Khaled Al-Batch, a militant and spokesman for Islamic Jihad, expressed hope Pelosi would continue winning elections, explaining the House speaker’s Damascus visit demonstrated she understands the Middle East.
“Nancy Pelosi understands the area (Middle East) well, more than Bush and Dr. (Condoleeza) Rice,” said Al-Batch, speaking to WND from Gaza. “If the Democrats want to make negotiations with Syria, Hamas, and Hezbollah, this means the Democratic Party understands well what happens in this area and I think Pelosi will succeed. … I hope she wins the next elections.”
Islamic Jihad has carried out scores of shootings and rocket attacks, and, together with the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group, has taken responsibility for every suicide bombing in Israel the past two years….
Al-Batch expressed hope Pelosi and the Democratic Party will pressure Bush to create dialogue with Syria and Middle East “resistance movements” and prompt an American withdrawal from Iraq.
“Bush and Dr. Rice made so many mistakes in the Middle East. Just look at Palestinian clashes and Iraq. But I think some changes are happening for the Bush administration’s foreign policy because of the hand of Nancy Pelosi. I think the Democratic Party can do things the best. … Pelosi is going down a good road by this policy of dialogue,” he said.
Abu Abdullah, a leader of Hamas’ military wing in the Gaza Strip, said the willingness by some lawmakers to talk with Syria “is proof of the importance of the resistance against the U.S.”
“The Americans know and understand they are losing in Iraq and the Middle East and that their only chance to survive is to reduce hostilities with Arab countries and with Islam. Islam is the new giant of the world.”
“Pelosi’s visit to Syria was very brave. She is a brave woman,” Jihad Jaara, a senior member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group and the infamous leader of the 2002 siege of Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, told WND.
—————–
“is proof of the importance of the resistance against the U.S.”
Could the description of a traitor be any more eloquent?
I wonder if Nancy Pelosi had the courage to ask Mr. Assad if he would like to give a sworn statement on Mr. Hariri’s passing in Lebanon to UN prosecutors?
His former Vice President seems to have some misgivings about Mr. Assad in this area.
Did Ms. Pelosi have any change of heart and see the bright light on the the “Road to Damascus”?
According to officials in the Prime Minister’s Office, however, this was not what transpired during her meeting with Olmert.
Left wingers and reality never cross paths.
The Democrats are like the Liberals, they think they are in power even when they aren’t, their egos simply won’t let them take a back seat to anything.
Fancy Nancy is the epitome of the Liberal Limo set. Even her head scarf for the Mosque is from Hermes.
Nancy has finally assumed her rightful role as Secretary of State, it was simply delayed by the bad chads in the Florida count in 2000.
.
Speaking of head scarves… did you notice that besides the female sailor, all the male sailors were dressed like Ahmadinejad? Funny, in a more disturbing kind of way.
She’s in way over her head.
Was this the same Syria that Tortured Maher Arar and caused all that outrage by the DEM’s
for sending a non-Citizen to Jordan who then was kidnapped by Arabs and driven to Syria to be tortured into a false confession for Terrorism ties.
We just gave Arar $10 million and now Pelosi acts as if Arar lied about the whole thing and that Syria is misunderstood.
Another useful idiot for Islamists. Think of it, the highest republican, in 1944, goes to Germany and meets with Adolph Hitler, where both of whom criticize that warmonger Roosevelt. This visit is seen as “proof of the importance of NAZI resistance against the US,” who are “losing in Europe and Asia and that their only chance to survive is to reduce hostilities with Axis countries and with totalitarianism. Naziism is the new giant of the world.”
What would happen when that person returned to US?
The arrogance of the Democrats is astonishing. Nancy Pelosi is acting ‘as if’ she were Head of State, ie, the President.
Her role as speaker is ‘somewhat akin’ to our leader of the opposition. Imagine if Stephane Dion went to Syria or anywhere, acting ‘as if’ he were a head of state, talking to them as if he had legal authority over the gov’t of Canada.
The disrespect Pelosi has shown to the Office of the President of the US – incredible. The Washington Post, a leftist paper, editorial argued against her.
And Thomas Sowell in the Washington Itmes, wrote that ‘Until Nancy Pelosi came along, it was understood by all that we had only one president at a time and , like him or not, he alone had the constitutional authority to speak for this country to foreign nations..
..Nancy Pelosi and the congressional Democrats are stepping in to carry out their own foreign policy and even their own military policy on troop deployment, all the while denying they are intruding on the president’s authority’..
Again, imagine if Stephane Dion or Jack Layton even, were to do the same as Pelosi.
Well we all know Harper wouldn’t have gone to Syria before he became PM, or any other country for that matter, since he didn’t have a passport…
But as for Pelosi’s visit, this from the Asia Times:
“The Americans have been searching for ways to re-engage the Syrians in recent weeks. Pelosi in Damascus, showering the Syrians with praise – and confidence – was an excellent way to do that. The Americans realized, as was stated in the Iraq Study Group Report, that Iraq cannot be stabilized without the Syrians and the Iranians.
Shortly before Ahmadinejad’s announcement, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualim had announced that his country was mediating with the Iranians to set the British sailors free. In a press conference before Pelosi’s departure, Moualim said British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s special envoy, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, had contacted Assad for that purpose. Earlier, Moualim told the Kuwaiti daily Al-Anba that Syria was using “calm diplomacy” to solve the British-Iranian crisis.
This is testimony to what the Syrians can actually do to influence Iran. They can be problem-solvers, rather than problem-creators. This message has now been heard loud and clear in Washington.
“The Democrats are like the Liberals, they think they are in power even when they aren’t, their egos simply won’t let them take a back seat to anything.
Fancy Nancy is the epitome of the Liberal Limo set. Even her head scarf for the Mosque is from Hermes.
Nancy has finally assumed her rightful role as Secretary of State, it was simply delayed by the bad chads in the Florida count in 2000.
.
Posted by: nomdenet at April 5, 2007 1:54 PM”
Would you like the definition of minority or can you look it up all by yourself?
I thought that Pelosi was Jewish? So why is she wearing the headscarf?
You’d almost think that she has been brain storming with Stephane Didlittle. But maybe Nancy just picked up the wrong folder on inauguration day.
Duties
Speaker of the House of Representatives
– is the presiding officer of the House of Representatives. …Aside from duties relating to heading the House and the majority political party, the Speaker also performs administrative and procedural functions, and remains the Representative of his or her congressional district.
The President
-represents the United States in foreign affairs.
One terror leader, Khaled Al-Batch, a militant and spokesman for Islamic Jihad, expressed hope Pelosi would continue winning elections, explaining the House speaker’s Damascus visit demonstrated she understands the Middle East.
Khaled Al-Batch: Heh Heh. If his dad has the same name, would that make him a son of a Batch?
just askin
I can’t stand that women. She’s so typical of a genre of so many Dem females in congress that in any other party or times would have peaked as PTA president. Talk about typical smarmy undermining of a sitting president, her trip was a disgrace, with the headscarf more telling of her that anything else. Required, hardly, she wasn’t in a mosque.
Savor this irony, she’s an icon among feminists, so the submissive headscarf gets a pass. She’s dumber than a rock, a pure vanity piece with the facelifts/botox and the capped teeth. Gag.
Even the liberal Washington Post had a go at her today as out of line.
Albatros 30 and declinng
Would you like the definition of permanent opposition?
New Decima poll
CPC – 39%
Libs – 30%
Dippers – 13
Bloc – 8%
Green – 8%
CPC leads Libs in Ontario, 42% to 36%.
The Tories were six points ahead of the Liberals in… vote-rich… Ontario and essentially tied with the Grits among urban and female voters, two demographic groups which have strongly favoured the Liberals in the past.
The Poop on Peloopsi!
Snark with a bite!!
*****I thought that Pelosi was Jewish? So why is she wearing the headscarf?******
pelosi jewish???
you must be joe king
catholic mofiosa
Seems to me Pelosi is in violation of the Logan Act and should be charged. That is the kind of smackdown she needs.
You should note that the scarf Mme Pelosi wore was tastefully decorated with *maple leaves*.
Cheers