Poor Pelosi

I'm seeing that Speaker Pelosi is taking more shit for going to Syria. I have no idea which congressional Republicans went over at roughly the same time, as they don't seem to be taking any heat. While numbly eliptcal-ing an hour away at the gym, there was an ad on CNN from the Republican Jewish Coalition blasting her trip. So it was OK for the Bush administration to use buddy-up with the Syrians to use their jails for the so-called was on terror, but her attempts at dialogue are counter-productive. The ad was particularly annoying in light of her press conference yesterday with Rep. Tom Lantos -- my hands-down favorite legislator -- a Holocaust survivor, who had no problem answering a question whether he'd go to Iran for dialogue. He said he'd get on plane immediately. I almost cried a little, worrying about his advanced age and what Congress will lose when he retires. We all know Ahmadinejad is a nutjob. But it's a nutty world, and we've got to talk to everybody if we want to operate in it. Smiling and shaking hands with people you despise is part of diplomacy. It costs you nothing, and may gain you plenty. And I hope Lantos and Pelosi spend lots more time together. I want as much of his wisdom as possible to rub on off this powerful woman, a Bal-mer girl (like my mom), whom I applaud for offereing a refreshingly sophisticated face to American diplomacy. Certainly it's better than John Bolton's criticism of Britain for sending letters to Iran regarding their detained troops, rather than, I presume, invading; or, worse yet, his apparent salivating at the prospect of them asking us to invade on their behalf. Where does this short-sightedness come from??