Pelosi Trip Brings Out All The Right's Hypocrites And Liars

The recent trip to Syria by house Speaker Pelosi has once again brought out the right wing portable punditry to lie, smear and spin. This time, the hypocrisy and lying is easy to spot. But only if you take your blinders off.

The biggest hypocrisy over the trip was concerning the fact that republicans had made the trip to speak to Syrian leaders over the current situations in the region. Of course, the "counter-spin" was singling out Pelosi as "speaker" and therefore was somehow different than ay other congressional leader.

I totally disagree with that, in fact, if anyone is going to represent the Congress, it should be the leadership. She has every right to go herself or choose who should go if she chooses not to. And considering that Pelosi merely reinforced our President's message on terrorism, she was not doing anythhing "rogue" or counterproductive in my opinion. Neoconservatives like to make the charge that Pelosi was sending a different message than that of our leadership in the executive branch, even tho she wasn't. that's because the yfeel safe in assuming that no republican has never gone to a foreign country and worked against our President.

Then let's all get in the "way back" machine and go back to 1997 when future Speaker and Comittee chairman Dennis Hastert ventured down to Columbia at a time when the Clinton administration was negotiating and trying to attach certain human rights provisions to some security assistance programs. Did Hastert merely reinforce the White House message like Speaker Pelosi did in Syria?

No, he didn't.

In fact, Speaker Hastert's express mission was to instruct Columbia to "bypass" our executive branch and deal directly with Congress. Hastert even had his staff negotiating directly with Columbians even bypassing our embassy in Bogata.

So, in other words, the right wingers are trying to condemn Pelosi for not doing exactly what their cronies did do when they were in power. Total hypocrites. to further the hypocrisy, when Speaker Newt Gingrich stepped down after the 1998 elections, Hastert was rewarded for "bypassing" the aadministration with the Speaker of the House position.

But wait, there's more!

There also has been a deliberate campaign to lie and smear the trip. The claims are that the Speaker "lied" about a message from Isreal to Syria that she was asked to convey. But again, if you take off the blinders and look past the rhetoric you get to the truth pretty quickly.

While the neoconservative punditry was blathering about the Washington Post's unsubstiated claims of "lying" about a message from Isreal, the official White House statement, from the people who actually saw the readout of their discussions was a little different. Oh, and by the way, State Dept. officials also attended the meetings. Here's what White House spokesperson Brendan Daly wrote about the issue ...

Daly wrote..."WH has not said that because in fact the Speaker did not get the message wrong — she included the necessary caveats and did not say or imply that this was a change in Israel’s position.”

Hmmmmmm....

It's really sad how this Administration and their cronies continue to play their little smear games even when it is obvious that they are being total liars and hypocrites here.

And ones with very short memories apparantly.

Meanwhile, we are learning of the Justice Department perhaps using US Attorney David Iglasius's gaurd service to our nation against him when firing him. The justice dept. has emphasized (with underlines) Mr Iglasius's guard duty and twisted the time he was spending getting other soldiers ready to fight the war on terror into him being an "absentee manager." Someone forgot to tell the dept. that discriminating against our Armed Forces and their requirements of service is against the law. And so far, I don't think anyone has found any obscure sections of the Patriot Act that they can hide behind.

And we learn that no less than 2 brigades heading for Iraq are doing so without the proper and required training for fighting over there. Then President Bush slips in a 50,000 dollar donating "Swiftboater" a cushy ambassadorship after his name was withdrawn from nomination in the last congressional session.

On one hand bitching about Congress, on the other hand, using their recess to slide lying swiftboaters into official positions with our government.

The more you know about this administration, the worse they get.

note: ***this article was changed and edited due to a factual error on my part. i falsely stated that dennis hastert was speaker of the house in 1997 when he circumvented the administration in going to columbia. i was wrong. he was not speaker until 1999. i apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

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The biggest hypocrisy over the trip was concerning the fact that republicans had made the trip to speak to Syrian leaders over the current situations in the region.

Correct. The point of isolating Syria from high level diplomatic discussions is to set the example for other countries that would love to make a buck selling them stuff that will be given to people that want to use that stuff on our troops. With the number three in succession of leadership showing up it gives those countries political cover to do the same. It puffs up our enemy and gives the enemy a platform from which to hurt us. Low level discussions have been going on for years. Even Jessie Jackson went over there to have chats when he was running for president and during hostage situations. As long as he did not make any policy statements he was frowned upon but nothing much more was said. During election seasons all hopefuls make trips abroad to be seen glad handing with leaders to show they have what it takes to be president. With Speaker Pelosi, she went in opposition to the leader showing there is division between the three branches of leadership, made policy statements that turned out to be wrong, which embarrassed the country, and usurped our current leader by taking on a diplomatic mission not authorized by the President who is the only one who can according to the constitution of the United States.

Then let's all get in the "way back" machine and go back to 1997 when then Speaker Dennis Hastert ventured down to Columbia at a time when the Clinton administration was negotiating and trying to attach certain human rights provisions to some security assistance programs. Did Speaker Hastert merely reinforce the White House message like Speaker Pelosi did in Syria?

No, he didn't.

In fact, Speaker Hastert's express mission was to instruct Columbia to "bypass" our executive branch and deal directly with Congress. Hastert even had his staff negotiating directly with Columbians even bypassing our embassy in Bogata.

So, in other words, the right wingers are trying to condemn Pelosi for not doing exactly what their cronies did do when they were in power. Total hypocrites.

Sherman, since we are in the wayback machine lets take a look at the Democrats who have used this tool on a regular basis. I am not playing gotcha with this just pointing out that it was born from the liberal side of the house.
Senator Kennedy sent letters to Secretary Andropov instructing him on how to put a happy face on Soviet communism and hints on how to beat Mr. Reagan at his own game. This was during the cold war with an enemy that had a stated goal of destroying the United States. The Democrat controlled Congress stopped an undercover war with Nicaragua by cutting off funding because they supported the dictator of that nation over the President of the United States. I could go on but I only wanted to make the point that Speaker Pelosi is following a tried and true plan used by liberals since the Vietnam War. We take a page from that book and we become the bad guys. May I remind you that we were not in a shooting war with Columbia, American lives were not at risk as far as I knew. Yet every time the liberals pull out their bag of tricks it has been when we as a nation are threatened by people that want to do us harm and they seem to support the people that want to do us harm in order to make political points at home. Did Speaker Hastert do wrong? If he did as you said he did, then he was wrong. I don’t remember the situation and I do not remember reading anything about it and with the press as anti conservative as they have been for the past 30 years I would bet money it will be splashed all over the news for the next week or so. Instead I am seeing is even the liberal papers are not pleased with Speaker Pelosi’s actions over there.

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B]May I remind you that we were not in a shooting war with Columbia,[/B]

and may i remind you that we are not in a shoting war with syria.

Instead I am seeing is even the liberal papers are not pleased with Speaker Pelosi’s actions over there.

outside of the post's bogus report, and those who parrotted it (the biggest bias in the media isn't liberal or conservative, it's laziness) i haven't seen much criticizm at all. just punditry from the right.

Did Speaker Hastert do wrong? If he did as you said he did, then he was wrong. I don’t remember the situation and I do not remember reading anything about it and with the press as anti conservative as they have been for the past 30 years

i remember it being reported and buried by the "starr investigation" that the lazy media couldn't get enough of. what hastert did wasn't only wrong, it was a clear volation of the Logan Act, passed by the congress only a few years before (1994). but the house under dennis hastert, as we have seen, doesn't police itself whatsoever.

The Democrat controlled Congress stopped an undercover war with Nicaragua by cutting off funding because they supported the dictator of that nation over the President of the United States.

yeah, it was called the iran -contra scandal. and according to reagan, he didn't know about it at all. funny how you point to a criminal act by neocons like ollie north and the suicide coward, robert mcfarland to make your point....lmfao!

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2 problems with that. First, and most blatant - Hastert was not Speaker (#3 in line). Second, what actually occurred was far less sinister.

One example of this was a congressional delegation led by Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) which met with Colombian military officials, promising to “remove conditions on assistance” and complaining about “leftist-dominated” U.S. congresses of years past that “used human rights as an excuse to aid the left in other countries.” Hastert said he would to correct this situation and expedite aid to countries allied in the war on drugs and also encouraged Colombian military officials to “bypass the U.S. executive branch and communicate directly with Congress.”

and 2a - Columbia has been and is an ally that is not supporting our enemies. Which cannot be said of bashar Assad.

Poof goes your indignation. Back to the Pelosi flame wars.

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yeah, it was called the iran -contra scandal. and according to reagan, he didn't know about it at all. funny how you point to a criminal act by neocons like ollie north and the suicide coward, robert mcfarland to make your point....lmfao!

Pity you did not look at the dates when you were in your wayback machine. This may sting a little. First the Congress cut the funding to a legal operation, because the liberal democrats did not like Mr. Reagan messing with their hero. once again messing with the presidents constitutional powers. The Congress has the right to cut the purse strings so they did. Congress made a law that said the United States could not spend any approprated funds on the secret war we were in. So they came up with a plan. Sell out of date malfunctioning weapons to Israel who then sells them to a third party who sold them to Iran at 4 times the price. the money was then split and sent to fund the war. No laws were broken but once the liberal democrats found out they were out smarted they were a little angry. So angry they gave immunity to the person who came up with the plan and put it into action. He confessed on national TV in Congress. Bummer huh? So my example was of how the liberals cut funding of a legal operation just to spite the President they could not hurt domestically so they went internationally. Good politics bad for the nation.

remember it being reported and buried by the "starr investigation" that the lazy media couldn't get enough of. what hastert did wasn't only wrong, it was a clear volation of the Logan Act, passed by the congress only a few years before (1994). but the house under dennis hastert, as we have seen, doesn't police itself whatsoever.

Wait, let me get my head around this. It was illegal for Speaker Hastert to do what he did, but was not procicuted. Now that Speaker Pelosi does something similar it is not in violation of teh Logan Act? How come no one has brought this up? I would be sure that the Conservative talk shows would bring it up if no one else did.

and may i remind you that we are not in a shoting war with syria.

Iran and Syria are funding and supporting the terrorist in Afghanistan, Israel, and Iraq. That makes them our enemy in a time of war, a shooting war some might say. It is the reason we are not giving them high level negotiations, or diplomats politicions like the Speaker of the House. Now Syria can say that they are important and what they are doing is the right course because it got such high level attention. we both know it is crap but when did that stop those people from using idiots and lies to further their goals?

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note...i edited this article and corected the factual errors that were pointed out to me by guy...thanks guy. i disagree with some of the other points made in the replies, but i did want to correct the one error i agree was made. hope i acted better than the NYT to ya'll, lol.

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