MTP Transcript for April 8, 2007

HOUSE SPEAKER PELOSI:  The meeting with the president enabled us to communicate a message from Prime Minister Olmert that Israel was ready to engage in peace talks as well.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  The office of the prime minister of Israel immediately released this statement to the press:  “What was communicated to the U.S. House speaker does not contain any change in the policies of Israel, as was communicated to other foreign leaders.  ...  The Prime Minister [in his meeting with Speaker Pelosi] emphasized that although Israel is interested in peace with Syria, that country continues to be part of the axis of evil and a force that encourages terror” “entire Middle East.”

Kate O’Beirne, what happened here?  And I note that the Israeli prime minister’s office included Syria in the axis of evil, which was not part of President Bush’s initial axis of evil.  But what does this mean for the speaker?

MS. O’BEIRNE:  Well, it, it—it’s so interesting.  As you well know, you used to have to dragoon members to serve on international relations committees, and now everybody wants to be secretary of state.  She, she, of course, went in opposition to the administration’s wishes.  Their policy is to—and they believe it’s terribly important to speak with one voice in foreign affairs—the policy is to isolate Syria, given the destructive role they’re playing in Lebanon, the destructive role they’re playing with respect to Iraq, letting terrorists in across their border at will.  And she defied that, of course, and made this very high profile trip.  It’s very different than back benchers from the Republican Party going.  They’d be lucky to get coverage in their local newspaper for a trip to Syria.

What I wonder, though, is what she was thinking with respect to the effect on her own Democratic caucus back home?  Republicans wonder whether or not she’s tone deaf.  There was a real blowback in commentary, a lot of criticism for her doing this, a lot of editorials thinking she’s with—out of line.  And I think that raises questions on the part of her colleagues.  I’m thinking of the more moderate members of the Democratic Party.  They don’t want to be labeled with being a “Nancy Pelosi Democrat” back home, and to the extent she makes herself such a lightning rod and so controversial, it just really raises the heat on them.  So I really questioned her judgment with respect to the delicate task she has with her conference.

MR. RUSSERT:  One of those editorials you mentioned was The Washington Post, who wrote this:  “The really striking development here is the attempt by a Democratic congressional leader to substitute her own foreign policy for that of a sitting Republican president.  ...” She’s “attempting to introduce a new Middle East policy that directly conflicts with that of the president.  ... Ms.  Pelosi’s attempt to establish a shadow presidency is not only counterproductive, it is foolish.” The Pelosi camp will say, “That’s ridiculous.  Republican congressmen also visited with the president of Syria. There’s a Republican part of our delegation.  We were only repeating to the president of Syria official policy of the United States and comments that the Israeli prime minister had made.”

Judy Woodruff, is this political piling on Nancy Pelosi or did she make a faux pas and she should be more careful?

MS. WOODRUFF:  Well, there’s not going to be agreement on that.  I’m tempted to say that there’s more politics here because she did have a Republican—she would be more vulnerable if she had not had a Republican member of Congress with her in her own delegation.  Three or four Republicans had already been to see the Syrian leader a few days before.  Members of Congress go to visit unfriendly governments all the time.  It happens practically every other week, Tim.  And, and you’re going to have this disagreement.  You’ve got Tom Lantos, who is the chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, saying what she did was, was perfectly fine, she represented the Israeli policy accurately, she didn’t step over the line.  The White House says differently.

MR. RUSSERT:  But that same Mr.  Lantos said, “We’re going to have an alternative Democratic foreign policy.”

MS. WOODRUFF:  Correct.  And we’ll see.

MR. RUSSERT:  David, in that case, can...

MS. WOODRUFF:  And we’ll see.

MR. RUSSERT:  Can you have two foreign policies?

MR. GREGORY:  No.  But the Democrats want to assert themselves, not just on Iraq but on foreign policy generally because they know their base wants to see that.  They know there’s a lot of people in the country who think they could—they should have a more assertive voice and be—and have more accountability.  On the facts here, it appears that it was at least a bit sloppy, critics will say, that the way she represented the Israeli point of view was not entirely complete, that she should have said, “Yes, they want peace talks, but you have to really crack down on Hamas and Hezbollah.” Pelosi maintains she said those very things, and she said them on camera during that same press conference that you played a portion of.  The issue was, this was asserting herself in a bit of shuttle diplomacy during a trip when the White House already said, “You shouldn’t be on it.” You saw Dick Cheney come out and say, “This is the danger, Republicans, Nancy Pelosi running foreign policy.” In effect, it’s a way for conservatives, for Republicans to unite a little bit.

MR. TODD:  This was a—Republicans found an opening.  You know, remember the plane incident with Pelosi?  Now this is the second time that they’ve been able to get the sort of conservative media machine going—Rush Limbaugh, Drudge—all in synch, which really only for the first time, it seems like, in three months.  And they hit her hard.  She’s going to weather this storm.  I think they need to, when they do these things, think, “What’s the worst case scenario?” and think about the optics of this.  They should’ve had those three Republican members of Congress that went sooner, they should’ve had them with them—her on this trip.  She should’ve had more than just one Republican and possibly had a high profile person from the Iraq Study Group, since that’s what she has used as a defense for going to Syria.  She could’ve done this in a much more—much more carefully orchestrated way, and she didn’t.  It was sloppy, as David said.

MR. RUSSERT:  But the Democratic base is demanding an alternative Democratic foreign policy?

MR. TODD:  Of course they are.  And if they don’t—I mean this is the, this is the thing the Democrats have to do.  It’s why Harry Reid is co-sponsoring this Russ Feingold bill, that it was the base of the Democratic Party that got energized in 2006 and got them control of Congress.  Harry Reid knows it, and that’s why he’s allowing himself to, to move farther to the left on some foreign policy issues.  It’s why Pelosi is going ahead and doing these things because they have to make sure they don’t just pay lip service to the left.

MS. O’BEIRNE:  But the, the Republicans sent that Washington Post editorial to local news outlets.  They think she’s really created a problem for her, for her conference.  She’s done a favor for Syria, which is questionable, and no favors, I think, for herself.

MR. RUSSERT:  We’re going to take a quick break and come back and talk about the 2008 presidential race.  Front and center, it’s only April of ‘07, but we have a real race on our hands.  Let’s—we’ll be right back after this.

(Announcements)

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