It adds up to much more than mere tolerance for their friends the communists, tyrants, drug smugglers, and terrorists.
by Tina Grazier
Nancy Pelosis recent surprise (and uninvited) visit to Iraq represents her second foray into the world of diplomacyand its NOT in her job description. It represents yet another example of the meddling tactics that some congressional democrats use to undermine sensitive diplomatic negotiations, operations, and policy of republican presidents. The danger this poses to Americans and American credibility around the world is not something to be taken lightly. The utter pomposity and ego it takes to assume the responsibilities of other elected officials, as well as effectively sidestepping the will of congress, is astounding and we should not let individual leaders get away with this egregious behavior. Congress and the president represent the voice of the American people; the decisions they make should not be usurped by individual congressmen who decide to take matters into their own hands.
My first example is from the 1980s as described by Dave Eberhart writing for NewsMax.com:
Kerry Went to Extreme Lengths to Back Communist Ortega and Undermine U.S.
President Ronald Reagan and a bipartisan majority in Congress were financing the Contras in Nicaragua in their fight against the Sandinista junta, which had been sponsoring communist guerrilla and terrorist groups from neighboring countries lighting a powder keg that threatened the entire region. ** The scene was set for Kerry to bluster into the equation like a bull in a China shop. Teaming with Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the pair – without portfolio – traveled to Managua to chat with Sandinista junta leader Daniel Ortega. ** The result: a meaningless document that State Department experts considered little more than an offer to the Contras to surrender. The Sandinistas made no commitment to national reconciliation, and that was the heart of the matter. ** Nonetheless, Kerry raced back to Washington with the document he touted as a peace proposal. Indeed, Ortega promises a cease-fire, as long as the United States cut off all assistance, including humanitarian aid, to the anti-communist forces and their families.
Was this an effort to pad the JFK (John F. Kerry) portfolioanother scheme designed to pave the way for a successful presidential runlike the home movies that he made of his short Vietnam service? Who knowsthe truth is he was acting on his own outside of official government policy. He was playing at being a diplomat or indeed the president.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., accused Kerry and Harkin of transgressing against the Constitution by holding unauthorized negotiations with a foreign leader. ** A peeved Secretary of State George Shultz announced, Those who assure us that these dire consequences are not in prospect [in Central America] are some of those who assured us of the same in Indochina before 1975. The litany of apology for communists, and condemnation for America and our friends, is beginning again. ** White House spokesman Larry Speakes rained more buckets on Kerry’s parade: The very hour the House was rejecting the aid package [to the Nicaraguan resistance], President Ortega was going to Moscow to seek funds for his Marxist regime. Ortega had, indeed, announced a trip to the U.S.S.R. to petition for $200 million more in Soviet support.
Senators Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd rushed to Kerrys defense and the plot was formed to play the game of misdirection. Like a skilled illusionist Kerry began plotting to scandalize republicans playing his tricks through the democrat vehicle of choice…investigations:
The former prosecutor got busy in 1986, launching a full-scale investigation to discredit the Nicaraguan resistance and the Reagan administration. The aim: stitch together – by whatever means – an international criminal conspiracy. ** Kerry signed a letter used in a direct-mail appeal for an outside group to raise money. That outside group was Commission on United States-Central American Relations, which was reportedly a front of International Center for Development Policy and included as members open supporters of the Sandinistas, the communist Cuban dictatorship of Fidel Castro and the communist FMLN guerrillas of El Salvador, according to commission literature. ** It was a racket that was probably illegal at the time, and certainly would be illegal now, a former Senate staffer with firsthand knowledge of the investigation revealed to Insight.
Thanks to a fawning media, deeply in league with democrats, the American people know little, if anything, about Kerrys misadventures but are well aware of the incident known as the Iran Contra scandal. Indeed we were beaten over the heads by the talking heads.
Another example of democrat meddling also springs from the Reagan era and comes into the light only because of research for a new book that uncovered a KGB letter:
The antipathy that congressional Democrats have today toward President George W. Bush is reminiscent of their distrust of President Ronald Reagan during the Cold War, a political science professor says. ** “We see some of the same sentiments today, in that some Democrats see the Republican president as being a threat and the true obstacle to peace, instead of seeing our enemies as the true danger,” said Paul Kengor, a political science professor at Grove City College and the author of new book, “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism.” ** In his book, which came out this week, Kengor focuses on a KGB letter written at the height of the Cold War that shows that Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) offered to assist Soviet leaders in formulating a public relations strategy to counter President Reagan’s foreign policy and to complicate his re-election efforts. ** The letter, dated May 14, 1983, was sent from the head of the KGB to Yuri Andropov, who was then General Secretary of the Soviet Union’s Communist Party. In his letter, KGB head Viktor Chebrikov offered Andropov his interpretation of Kennedy’s offer. Former U.S. Sen. John Tunney (D-Calif.) had traveled to Moscow on behalf of Kennedy to seek out a partnership with Andropov and other Soviet officials, Kengor claims in his book. At one point after President Reagan left office, Tunney acknowledged that he had played the role of intermediary, not only for Kennedy but for other U.S. senators, Kengor said. Moreover, Tunney told the London Times that he had made 15 separate trips to Moscow. ** Specifically, Kennedy proposed that Andropov make a direct appeal to the American people in a series of television interviews that would be organized in August and September of 1983, according to the letter. ** In Kennedy’s view, the main reason for the antagonism between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1980s was Reagan’s unwillingness to yield on plans to deploy middle-range nuclear missiles in Western Europe, the KGB chief wrote in his letter.
History, of course, proves Kennedy was wrong about Reagan and wrong about the Soviets.
All of this brings us back to the recent trip Pelosi took to Iraq. Investors Business Daily describes it as a purely political act:
Pelosi’s Politics-Driven Diplomacy, by Investor Business Daily
What, exactly, does House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s latest junket to Iraq have to do with her official duties? Her inability to keep her amateur fingers out of the foreign policy pie suggests a political power grab. ** Pelosi went to Iraq uninvited Saturday, and her reception was less than warm. Iraq’s democratically elected Nouri al-Maliki government wanted nothing to do with her until she admitted the truth about Iraq’s progress as a nation and quit braying that U.S. troops must be immediately pulled out, a proposal so naive that even radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr opposes it. Her aim was simple: to undercut Bush, which seemed like a good idea at the time, with the U.S. mired in a war few thought was winnable. Never mind the cost to taxpayers, or the strain on diplomatic missions, which had to cater to her she wanted to damage Bush.
Her trip to Iraq is particularly troubling given the fact that she had another invitation that would have related to her job as Speaker of the House:
Meanwhile, Pelosi spurned the opportunity to make a legitimate trip she was invited to make to Colombia, on behalf of the U.S.-Colombia free-trade treaty. President Alvaro Uribe invited her to see how his country has improved over the past five years. ** Colombia is a country that literally cheers visiting U.S. free-trade delegations, as IBD witnessed last January in Medellin. Why not go? To get back at Bush and reward her anti-trade cronies in Big Labor.
Anticipating big wins for democrats in November she just couldnt pass up the chance to undermine our current republican president. She didnt mind shunning Uribe either, or putting off the important legislation about free trade with Columbia.
This kind of political grandstanding is absolutely unacceptable and illustrates one of the many reasons that Americans disapprove of this democrat controlled congress. (all emphasis above is mine)
Please vote wisely in November.