House Republican Leader John Boehner of West Chester yesterday accused Speaker Nancy Pelosi of going to Syria solely to embarrass President Bush, a charge rejected by an Ohio GOP lawmaker traveling with Pelosi.

Rep. David L. Hobson of Springfield, who joined Pelosi and other lawmakers in a meeting yesterday with Syrian President Bashar Assad, disagreed with Boehner that Pelosi “came here to embarrass Bush. I think she came here to reinforce certain policies, understand the region better and have the region understand her better.”

In a telephone interview last night from Saudi Arabia, Hobson said Pelosi “did not engage in any bashing of Bush in any meeting I was in and she did not in any meeting I was in bash the policies as it relates to Syria.”

Instead, Hobson said, Pelosi and the congressional delegation urged Assad to curb the number of suicide bombers who cross the Syrian border into Iraq to “murder our troops and the Iraqi people.”

He did the right thing: he invaded Grenada.

COON, James J., 22, Pfc., Army; Walnut Creek, Calif.; First Cavalry Division.

http://tinyurl.com/2h8jw6

But right now I’m consumed with the more compelling issue of whether or not Darrell Issa will be sent to the slammer, where he belongs.

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_5602637

http://tinyurl.com/28auoa

… compliments of Michael Turner’s careful instruction. Thanks, MT!

This spiel above as to why Pelosi or any other congressional figure shouldn’t be allowed to visit Syria and question officials about policy is on of the most jumbled, over-simplified expositions on the question of how to deal with the tangled web of the Middle East I’ve ever read. This whole deal raises another burning question: should Cong. Mike Conway (R – TX), Cong. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and others be prosecuted for recent discussions held with Cuban officials about ending sanctions ? These were consultations in which the congressmen (a bipartisan group, for the record) explored a policy option with a foreign government considered an enemy of the U.S. that they actually might be able to effect.

The “Hate Pelosi” subtext of this tendentious bullshit just screams through this “scandal” fabricated by folks who, frankly, have a record of being wrong every time they open their mouths on related issues. Somebody tell me one goddam thing regarding strategy that we’ve heard from GM’s end of the galaxy on the central quagmire facing us in the Middle East these last several years that’s turned out to be worth the pixels it’s printed on. Pelosi’s become “Clinton Lite” for these crackpots – a target of opportunity, even when the “opportunity” is something they make up.

Having said that, just because a law is old and unused, doesn’t mean that it can’t be used. What Pelosi and the republicans did was dispicable from the standpoint of honoring our national interest in not dealing with states that have been named as supporting terrorism especially when the state involved is one who is probably involved in the hell in Lebanon as is Syria and their clients/puppets Hezbollah. I don’t give a crap who buys into that argument, it is flat out dispicable in my opinion, those folk we know murdered 200 plus Marines and have been implicated in the killing of numerous pro-democracy elements in Lebanon.

Perhaps the Logan act is one more reason to sun-set all federal laws.