Cheney Sticks to His Delusions

"All week the White House has criticized Pelosi's trip to the Middle East, but no comments have been as colorful as Cheney's."

Pelosi expressed hope for peace between Syria and Israel, and said that she had conveyed Israel's readiness to engage in peace talks.

Said Cheney: "It was a non-statement, non-sensical statement and didn't make any sense at all that she would suggest that those talks could go forward as long as the Syrians conducted themselves as a prime state sponsor of terror."

But by Pelosi's own account, she cleaved precisely to previous U.S. and Israeli policy statements. (And, as Frank James blogs for the Chicago Tribune, State Department officials were present and therefore could dispute her account if it were wrong.)

Elizabeth Williamson wrote in yesterday's Washington Post: "Foreign policy experts generally agree that Pelosi's dealings with Middle East leaders have not strayed far, if at all, from those typical for a congressional trip. But in a nation deeply divided over America's role and standing in the world, the Democratic-led Congress's push into foreign policy has prompted a ferocious reaction from a White House doubly protective of its turf."

Joe Conason writes in Salon: "With her brief visit to Syria, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has provoked an outburst of flaming hysteria from the Bush administration, as well as from the neoconservatives who fashioned its ruinous war and failed foreign policies. . . .

"Pelosi was attacked for her remarks about the possibility of peace talks between Syria and Israel, as if this radical prospect had never been broached before. Before arriving in Damascus, she had met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and addressed the Knesset, pledging Democratic support for the defense of the Jewish state.

"Although Olmert later attempted to embarrass Pelosi by declaring that he had given her no message for Assad, his own spokeswoman issued a statement after their meeting on April 1, which clearly indicated that they had discussed what she might say to the Syrian president. According to that statement, Olmert told her that he would enter negotiations with Assad only if Syria withdrew its support for Hamas and Hezbollah. There is no evidence that Pelosi said anything different in Damascus."

Bush on the Sidelines

So why is the White House so angry?

Conason writes: "The neoconservatives, both within and outside the White House, resent Pelosi for publicly dissenting from their ideology of war and their rejection of diplomacy. Their own vision has collapsed in ruins; they have gravely harmed the American military and discredited the ideals of democracy, and they have run out of ideas."

Tom Raum writes for the Associated Press: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi engages Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus and passes him a peace message from Israel. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad frees 15 British captives, defusing a crisis with Britain. Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah moves to take the lead in pressing for Mideast peace.

"The missing thread in these international developments? President Bush. . . .