Nancy lied. People have died.
For Congress, though, the resolution was less about rectifying history than grandstanding. House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Tom Lantos (D., Cal.) called a vote. It passed. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) pooh-poohed the episode. This was not about Turkey, she explained, but rather 'about the Ottoman Empire.' Unclear, though, is why congressional Democrats felt the urgent need to condemn an entity that hasn't existed for 85 years... If only the Armenian Genocide resolution was an isolated event. It's amateur hour in Congress. The efforts of Sen. Joseph Biden (D., Del.) to divide Iraq on ethnic and religious grounds threaten to spark civil war just as U.S. servicemen make inroads in preventing it... In May 2006, Rep. Jack Murtha (D., Pa.) said that U.S. Marines executed Iraqis 'in cold blood.' Overnight, his clip became an Al-Jazeera favorite. Islamist terrorists used Murtha's words to justify their murder of Americans. Now, a court martial has dismissed murder charges against the servicemen Murtha accused; Murtha has yet to apologize... Every leak splashed across a New York Times undercuts the war on terror... Basking in the glow of Pelosi's headline-garnering visit to Damascus -- again in contravention of a State Department request -- Syrian leader Bashar al-Asad upgraded his support for Hezbollah and his nuclear dealings with North Korea... In an election season, Pelosi, Biden, and Murtha, may have no greater goal than to garner headlines, but U.S. servicemen fighting terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan do. Countering proliferation and fighting terrorism will dominate diplomacy regardless of who next occupies the White House... troops continue to sacrifice to defend U.S. national security, it is unfortunate that headline seeking congressmen seek to make their job that much harder.