Memo To Winger Media: Pelosi Isn't Going To Iran
April 11, 2007 -- 3:18 PM EST // //
A lot of winger bloggers and commentators are raising a big fuss over the fact that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared to suggest at a press conference yesterday that she might be planning a trip to Iran with Dem Rep. Tom Lantos.
In our view, her remarks were inconclusive -- while one could reasonably conclude from them that she might be open to going, she also didn't say outright that she was going, or even that she was planning on going. It seemed like further inquiry was in order.
So we tried something novel: We called Pelosi's office and asked for clarification. Her spokesman, Brendan Daly, emailed us the following:
“The Speaker has no intention of going to Iran.“She has great respect for Mr. Lantos, who is the only Holocaust survivor in the Congress and a staunch supporter of Israel, and who would like to go to begin a dialogue there, as the bipartisan Iraq Study Group recommended.”
This is going to prove terribly disappointing to winger bloggers and commentators, many of whom are still stoking outrage about her trip to Syria as part of an absurdly transparent effort to weaken her in her capacity as the front-woman for Dem efforts to end the Iraq war.
Indeed, the "controversy" over Pelosi's alleged desire to go to Iran followed a remarkably similar trajectory to the one about Syria, only in this case no such trip was in the process of happening or even in the process of being planned. The controversy began yesterday after Pelosi held a joint press conference with Dem Rep. Tom Lantos, a Holocaust survivor. Lantos said that "speaking for myself," he wanted to go, and suggested that she might want to join him. Pelosi didn't disagree with this, but nor did she say she wanted to go, either. That nonetheless was written up in the San Francisco Chronicle with this headline:
Pelosi, Lantos may be interested in diplomatic trip to Iran
That was quickly linked to by Matt Drudge under the hed "Pelosi may go to Iran." That of course led to a series of minor explosions around the right-wing blogosphere and on cable TV. Over at Michelle Malkin's Hot Air, "Allapundit" actually admitted he wanted to see her go because it would weaken her politically, writing: "This is the one case of fascist outreach I’m keen to see them pursue, so luscious would the blowback be." (And here you thought that these good people didn't want her to meet with the enemy because it would be bad for America!) Over at National Review's The Corner, Kathryn Jean Lopez wrote: "Maybe Speaker Pelosi Should Pass a Law Eliminating the Exec Branch." (That was sarcasm, in case you couldn't tell.) It bounced around the winger blogosphere a bunch and was even was discussed on Fox News, where it was heavily criticized.
Of course, no one even knew whether she had any intention of actually going to Iran or not. As best as I can determine, no one -- not the San Francisco Chronicle writer, no reporters at Fox News, no one else peddling this tale -- took the elementary step of contacting Pelosi's office to ask for clarification of her remarks. Of course, if they had, they might have discovered that they didn't have anything to get "outraged" about anymore.
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