Posted on 04/02/2007 8:38:52 PM PDT by jazusamo
April 3, 2007
Congressman Tom Lantos, who is a member of the delegation that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is leading to Syria, put the mission clearly when he said: "We have an alternative Democratic foreign policy."
Democrats can have any foreign policy they want -- if and when they are elected to the White House.
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, especially in wartime.
All that Pelosi's trip can accomplish is to advertise American disunity to a terrorist-sponsoring nation in the Middle East while we are in a war there. That in turn can only embolden the Syrians to exploit the lack of unified resolve in Washington by stepping up their efforts to destabilize Iraq and the Middle East in general.
Members of the opposition party, whichever party that might be at a given time, knew that their role was not to intervene abroad themselves to undermine this country's foreign policy, however much they might criticize it at home.
During the Second World War, the defeated Republican presidential candidate, Wendell Wilkie, even acted as President Roosevelt's personal envoy to British Prime Minister Churchill.
He understood that we were all in this together, however we might disagree among ourselves about the best course to follow.
Today, 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 that they are intruding on the president's authority.
They are doing the same thing domestically by making a big media circus over the fact that the Bush administration fired eight U.S. attorneys. These attorneys are among the many officials who serve at the pleasure of the president -- which means that they can be fired at any time for any reason or for no reason.
That is why there was no big hullabaloo in the media when Bill Clinton fired all the U.S. attorneys across the country -- even though that got rid of the U.S. attorneys who were conducting an on-going investigation into corruption in Clinton's own administration as governor of Arkansas.
So much hate has been hyped against George W. Bush that anything that is done against him is unlikely to be questioned in most of the media.
But whatever passing damage is being done to George W. Bush is a relatively minor concern compared to the lasting damage that is being done to the presidency as an institution that will still be here when George W. Bush is gone.
Once it becomes accepted that it is all right to violate both the laws and the traditions of this nation, and to undermine the ability of the United States to speak to other nations of the world with one voice, we will have taken another fateful step downward into the degeneration of this society.
Such a drastic and irresponsible step should remove any lingering doubt that the Democrats' political strategy is to ensure that there is an American defeat in Iraq, in order to ensure their own political victory in 2008.
That these political games are being played while Iran keeps advancing relentlessly toward acquiring nuclear weapons is a fateful sign of the utter unreality of politicians preoccupied with scoring points and a media obsessed with celebrity bimbos, living and dead.
Once Iran has nuclear weapons, that will be an irreversible change that will mark a defining moment in the history of the United States and of Western civilization, which will forever after live at the mercy of hate-filled suicidal fanatics and sadists.
Yet among too many politicians in Washington, it is business as usual. Indeed, it is monkey business as usual, as Congressional Democrats revel in the power of their new and narrow election victory last year to drag people before committee hearings and posture for the television cameras.
It has been said that the world ends not with a bang but with a whimper. But who would have thought that it could end with political clowning in the shadow of a mushroom cloud?
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Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His Web site is www.tsowell.com.
Great post; so correct about the cancer.
Sowell is excellent - wish he were running for Pres!
That means the ultra left has seized complete control, and any Dems who feel tinges of patriotism are silenced or have joined other parties. There is no more conservative side of the Donkey Party. The elites who run it are now almost totally opposed to traditional American mores and values. They want to make the U.S. a western hemisphere version of Sweden.
“But whatever passing damage is being done to George W. Bush is a relatively minor concern compared to the lasting damage that is being done to the presidency as an institution that will still be here when George W. Bush is gone. “
George Bush could, maybe, DEFEND the presidency by standing up to all of these unprecedented attacks on his authority, or is that too much to expect?
Tell her she isn’t going to Syria and if she insists, lift her passport. (Or clap her ass into jail when she returns)
It seems that the current Democrat leadership is driving Dr. Sowell to the Republicans. Historically, he’s taken both parties to task for being dingbats (which they are), but the balance has obviously shifted.
As brilliant as Dr. Sowell is, I have to disagree on this point... there has been no lingering doubt on this score for some time, only denial. This absurdity from Pelosi, Lantos, et. al., simply rips the mask away from that state of denial.
Illegal Diplomats- Just doing the diplomacy that the Bush administration won’t do.../s/
Why can’t we have more men like Thomas?
It seems that the current Democrat leadership is driving Dr. Sowell to the Republicans. Historically, hes taken both parties to task for being dingbats (which they are), but the balance has obviously shifted.
That's true. Depressing.
Sadly you are right. We are just biding our time until the next 9-11. While the liberals make our families and friends open targets for the terrorists they bash conservatives at each and every moment that we are the cause of all of the worlds injustices. When the whack comes they will be lined up proclaiming that it was us that caused this. The real murderers with be the DemoRAT liberals.
If Iran gains Nukes because the Congress has surrendered in Iraq that is all right with the Democrats, even if they wipe out Staten Island, because it will be ascribed to Bush. Bush’s Fault.
This is a little over the top for Dr. Sowell. I'm surprised that he made such a statement in a historical vacuum. The world has ever been at the mercy of fanatics, and it's not like Iran couldn't get their hands on nukes if they really wanted to.
In any case, the Democrats are performing true to form. They are embarked on a mission to transform this republic into a democracy. As Karl Marx said, democracy is the road to socialism.
He is in his 70’s, after all.
Sadly, there is no such thing as treason anymore. Jane Fonda not executed. “Jihad Johnnie” not executed. The list is long.
This is a little over the top for Dr. Sowell...
Good point, Clyde. When that happens - and I agree that it's likely before we reach Dr. Sowell's age - everything previous will look like the Elizabethan Period.
No doubt, clyde. However, I don't think possession of the weapons will give them any stronger hold on the world's attention than the threat of possession.
In other words, the threat is already a done deal, and the crazies know the West doesn't have the stomach to do anything about it. Everything going on between the President and the Congress is sheer demagoguery and partisan pushing and shoving.
The effect that Pelosi and her Democrats are having on the situation in Iran and Iraq is arguable. What is not arguable is the damage they are doing to the structure of the republic. I think Dr. Sowell's argument would have been better served had he addressed that aspect more strongly.
Maybe he'll do that in his next column.
Whether the threat of nuclear weapons is greater before or after their first use against the US is open to question. I'm tempted to say that Japan in 1945 is almost completely forgotten, but I can make the same point more clearly by changing that to New York in 2001.
Ping!
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