****Update****

Pelosi: Mideast Trip Strengthened Ties

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, deflecting White House criticism of her trip to Syria, said Friday she thinks the mission helped President Bush because it showed the United States is unified against terrorism despite being divided over the Iraq war.

Pelosi, D-Calif., met with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus earlier this week, against the president’s wishes.

“Our message was President Bush’s message,” Pelosi said in a phone interview with The Associated Press from Portugal, where she stopped briefly en route back to the United States.

“The funny thing is, I think we may have even had a more powerful impact with our message because of the attention that was called to our trip,” the California Democrat said. “It became clear to President Assad that even though we have our differences in the United States, there is no division between the president and the Congress and the Democrats on the message we wanted him to receive.”

Sounds like excuses to Flap.

And it is just BULL.

When the Speaker returns to the United States, the Department of Justice should prosecute Pelosi for violating the Logan Act.

In the meantime, the House of Representatives should repudiate her and pass a resolution condemning her activities.

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (L) meets with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus on 04 April 2007. Pelosi has defended her controversial meeting with Assad.

WSJ: Illegal Diplomacy

Did Nancy Pelosi commit a felony when she went to Syria?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may well have committed a felony in traveling to Damascus this week, against the wishes of the president, to communicate on foreign-policy issues with Syrian President Bashar Assad. The administration isn’t going to want to touch this political hot potato, nor should it become a partisan issue. Maybe special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, whose aggressive prosecution of Lewis Libby establishes his independence from White House influence, should be called back.

The Logan Act makes it a felony and provides for a prison sentence of up to three years for any American, “without authority of the United States,” to communicate with a foreign government in an effort to influence that government’s behavior on any “disputes or controversies with the United States.”

In the Speaker’s quest for power, she has undermined the President of the United States and the American people.

When Pelosi returns to the United States, the Attorney General should prosecute her for violating the Logan Act. Her actions are clear and let her explain them to a judge.

End of story.

WSJ: Democrats at War

Prime Minister Pelosi and Secretary of State Lantos undermine U.S. foreign policy–and maybe their own party.

Democrats took Congress last fall in part by opposing the war in Iraq, but it is becoming clear that they view their election as a mandate for something far more ambitious–to wit, promoting and executing their own foreign policy, albeit without the detail of a Presidential election.

Their intentions were made plain this week with two remarkable acts by their House and Senate leaders. Majority Leader Harry Reid endorsed Senator Russ Feingold’s proposal to withdraw from Iraq immediately, cutting off funds entirely within a year. He promised a vote soon, as part of what the Washington Post reported would also be a Democratic offensive to close Guantanamo, reinstate legal rights for terror suspects, and improve relations with Cuba.

Meanwhile, Speaker Nancy Pelosi made her now famous sojourn to Syria, donning a head scarf and advertising that she was conducting shuttle diplomacy between Jerusalem and Damascus. If there was any doubt that her trip was intended as far more than a routine Congressional “fact-finding” trip, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Tom Lantos put it to rest by declaring that, “We have an alternative Democratic foreign policy. I view my job as beginning with restoring overseas credibility and respect for the United States.”

Speaker Pelosi should re-read the United States Constitution. She is NOT the President of the United States. If she desires the office, then there is another Presidential election in 2008.

The Democrats have crossed the line. But, if they have policy differences with the present administration, Flap welcomes their proposals to defund the President’s foreign policy initiatives and rescind the two Congressional approved war resolutions.

If they have the intestinal fortitude.

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Michael Ramirez on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Trip to Syria

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