{"id":10422,"date":"2007-04-05T14:00:31","date_gmt":"2007-04-05T18:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10422.html"},"modified":"2007-04-05T14:00:31","modified_gmt":"2007-04-05T18:00:31","slug":"let-the-right-wing-issa-smear-begin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/let-the-right-wing-issa-smear-begin\/","title":{"rendered":"Let the right-wing Issa smear begin"},"content":{"rendered":"

The right seems to have written some dishonest, hard-hitting talking points on Speaker Pelosi’s trip to Syria, but I’m beginning to think a few members of the team missed the memo<\/a>. (thanks to L.M. for the heads-up)<\/p>\n

Commenting on Bush’s criticism, California Republican Darrell Issa said the president had failed to promote the necessary dialogue to resolve disagreements between the U.S. and Syria.<\/p>\n

“That’s an important message to realize: We have tensions, but we have two functioning embassies,” Issa told reporters after separate meetings with Assad and his foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem.<\/p>\n

Issa, a Lebanese-American who frequently travels to the region, said he and other members of Congress would continue to encourage the Bush administration to engage Syria.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We can now look forward to Washington Post editorials<\/a> bashing Issa, right-wing blog posts questioning<\/a> his patriotism, White House press briefings<\/a> referring to Issa’s dangerous and reckless discussions, and CNN asking<\/a> whether Issa’s trip is a “big wet kiss to President Al-Assad,” right? Right<\/i>?<\/p>\n

In fact, since the conservative Issa was more direct and candid in criticizing the president’s policy while meeting with Assad, the conservative condemnations for his behavior should be even stronger<\/i>, right?<\/p>\n

Rep. David Hobson (R-Ohio), who was part of Pelosi’s delegation, said<\/a> the Speaker “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.”<\/p>\n

So, as far as the right should be concerned, a conservative Republican went further in appeasing a terrorist state than our liberal House Speaker. The denunciations of Issa should, therefore, be overwhelming. Penalties, censure, and expulsion from the caucus would logically be on the table.<\/p>\n

And yet, I have a hunch it’s not going to happen.
\n
\nAs TP noted<\/a>, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) went on to explain that it’s okay for Republicans to visit Syria, just not Pelosi.<\/p>\n

“It’s one thing for other members to go,” Boehner said, “but you have to ask yourself, ‘Why is Pelosi going?’ She’s going for one reason and that is to embarrass the president. She is the speaker of the House. She’s giving (the Syrian) government more credit than they deserve. They sponsor terrorism. They have not been at all helpful. I wish she wasn’t there.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I wonder if Boehner is familiar with the phrase “cognitive dissonance.”<\/p>\n

Post Script<\/i>: By the way, the right’s smear might be more effective if they were all on the same page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I don’t care what the administration says on this. You gotta do what you think is in the best interest of your country,” said Rep. Frank Wolf of Virginia, who was part of the delegation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wolf, who no one would reasonably call a “moderate,” should get the same smear, if there was any intellectual consistency involved here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The right seems to have written some dishonest, hard-hitting talking points on Speaker Pelosi’s trip to Syria, but I’m beginning to think a few members of the team missed the memo. (thanks to L.M. for the heads-up) Commenting on Bush’s criticism, California Republican Darrell Issa said the president had failed to promote the necessary dialogue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}