Not surprisingly, those fine folks currently inhabiting the West Wing don’t like this latest example of Senator Kerry working hard to carry out the wishes of the American people one little bit.

As these excerpts from recent Reuters, AP, and YNet news stories on visits to the Middle East by Senator Kerry and his colleagues indicate, the Bush Administration is trying hard to spin down and discourage such valid and valuable initiatives on the part of bipartisan officials who are not under its direct control:

WASHINGTON, Dec 14 (Reuters)—The White House sought on Thursday to head off further visits by U.S. lawmakers to Syria, saying such trips undermine President George W. Bush’s message that Damascus must stop meddling in Iraq and Lebanon.

A Democratic senator who met this week with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said the administration should explore what he said was an opening for dialogue.

But White House spokesman Tony Snow brushed aside that advice from Florida Sen. Bill Nelson and said meetings like his offer a public-relations win to Syria’s leaders.

[...]

Bush has resisted calls to talk to both Syria and Iran, even though engagement with those countries was a central recommendation of the Iraq Study Group, which was led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton and urged an overhaul of U.S. policies on Iraq.

Nelson paid the visit even though the White House made clear its objections ahead of time.

[...]

Other senators are also expected to go to Syria in the next few weeks, including Democrats Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and John Kerry of Massachusetts.

Political sources in Damascus said Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, was expected to visit soon. His office declined to comment on his schedule.

Dodd, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, defended his visit as part of Congress’s oversight role and said it was important for lawmakers to go to “hotspots, not just garden spots.”

A number of Democrats, who are poised to take over Congress in January, favor engagement with Syria and Iran.

[...]

David Wade, spokesman for Kerry, said the senators are using their visits to Syria for “fact-finding, not negotiating.”

“There’s no better way to test Syrian intentions than by asking the tough questions face to face,” he said.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 (AP) - The White House said Thursday that trips to Syria by U.S. lawmakers are a public relations victory for a government that is thwarting democratic reform in the Middle East.

The Bush administration has tried to discourage lawmakers from going to Syria, White House press secretary Tony Snow said. “We think it’s inappropriate.”

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., emerged from a meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus on Wednesday, saying Assad was willing to help control the Iraq-Syrian border. Nelson said he viewed Assad’s remarks as “a crack in the door for discussions to continue. I approach this with realism, not optimism.”

[...]

Taking issue with the White House, Dodd said in a statement that members of Congress “need to go to hotspots, not just garden spots. I can’t think of a more critical part of the world than the Middle East and I can’t think of a more critical player in affecting events in the region for good or for bad than Syria.”

Kerry spokesman David Wade said the senators were engaged in fact finding, not negotiating. “If Ronald Reagan could talk to the ‘evil empire,’ surely United States senators with a responsibility to American troops can visit Syria,” Wade said, referring to Reagan’s description of the former Soviet Union.

WASHINGTON, Dec 15 (YNet/AP)—The Bush Administration continues to signal that it is not taking seriously the Baker-Hamilton report.
Following a visit by Democratic Senator Bill Nelson to Syria two days ago, the American administration on Thursday gave unequivocal arguments for its refusal to hold direct talks with Damascus.
The White House was also not happy with the report’s recommendations on Iraq and the Pentagon has already advised that the US boosts it troops in Iraq by 10 to 15 thousand soldiers.

[...]
White House press secretary Tony Snow said the trip by Nelson, a member of the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, and future visits to Syria expected by Sens. John Kerry and Christopher Dodd, both Democrats, and Arlen Specter, a Republican, send an unhelpful, mixed message to the Syrians.

And he warned that the lawmakers could become ensnared in efforts by Damascus to burnish its image. “It may cost some people their credibility,” Snow said.
[...]
Nelson’s spokesman Dan McLaughlin called the remarks a “baseless attack” and said the White House was producing the “same old tired, mean-spirited partisan politics” that were unhelpful to the situation in Iraq. McLaughlin defended Nelson’s trip as par for the course for a senator who sits on three oversight committees: Armed Services, Foreign Relations and Intelligence.
“In Syria, he met with a man he’s met with twice before—not to negotiate, which is the president’s job, but to talk and gather facts and report back to Congress and the State Department,” McLaughlin said. “Senators meet with heads of state all the time.”

Senator Kerry and those like him are doing the peoples’ business by engaging with other players on the world stage in these trying times. Whether some of us might like it or not, the United States is not the only country on the planet, and trying to bully the rest of the world into submission to its arbitrary will is as insupportable as it is immoral.

It’s completely appropriate for members of the SFRC to engage with foreign leaders in the M.E., especially when the “commander-in-chief” can’t be bothered.  I particularly like the way Matt Browner-Hamlin at the Baltimore Group put it:

For one, it reminds the governments of the Middle East that the United States, contra Bush, is not George W. Bush. There are profound differences over how the US crafts our foreign policy and not all American leaders think sitting Syria and Iran in the proverbial corner with a dunces’ cap is the best strategy. Presenting a liberal vision for foreign policy with governments that have been shunned by the US for the last few years is a step forward.

Exactly. The more that Dems like Senator Kerry can show that the U.S. is NOT George Bush, the more we can show a different, better vision for how America can be in the world, the better it will be for America, and - hopefully - the more likely more Americans will wake up and continue to elect thinking, rational, mature people (usually Democrats) to run the country.

As usual, John Kerry is being a leader, and finding out first hand what’s happening with our troops and the key regional players.

The contrast with DimWit in Chief as petulant and slow-witted child is striking. Dumbya will spend the next few weeks/months on a PR tour laying out his ‘careful consideration’ to the American people, only to come out in the end with some lame, half-baked political *** covering plan… a plan birthed, like all of DimWit’s plans, in the bubble of monosyllabic head-patting that has exemplified the guidance of his inner circle.

Pathetic.

‘Careful Consideration’ would have been really useful oh, say, three years ago… Now, it’s just way too complex for little George.

Please, somebody buy him a baseball team…

As an Arab-American, and supporter of Senator Kerry I appreciate his leadership with regards to Syria and Iran.  However, we must remind the Senator that the price for Syria’s cooperation must not be Lebanon.  Bush senior and James Baker made that mistake once when soliciting Syria’s help in Desert Storm.  This cannot be allowed to happen again.  Syria’s hegemony over Lebanon turned that country into a terrorist haven for nearly thirty years.  Today Lebanon is a fledgling, pro-western democracy, the only such democracy in the Arab world. If we sellout the Lebanese again, the consequences will be enormous.  Doing so would create an Iranian sphere of influence including such countries as Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and potentially Bahrain, thus threatening key Sunni allies such as Saudi Arabia, Kuait, and Egypt.  We should all be in favor of dialogue but we must always be mindful of the price.

Well, one thing we know about Senator Kerry is that he will always be respectful to those in office; but that he is also unlikely to allow himself to be poked with a stick without making sure the proper boundaries are understood by all concerned.

Several comments already noted above how the White House was going out of its way to spin down and sandbag the efforts of Senator Kerry and his colleagues from both sides of the aisle—efforts aimed at engaging other countries in the Middle East in dialogues that might help to find some reasonable solutions to the hellish quagmire that we’ve all been dragged down into in Iraq courtesy of the discredited neocon agenda.

He and the others who are pursuing those logical, rational, reality-based initiatives are now responding to the White House’s spin campaigns. Here’s just one example, as published online by CBS News at http://tinyurl.com/v5hwf—

(AP) Sen. John Kerry, on a Mideast tour taking him to Damascus for talks with President Bashar Assad, said Friday that the Bush administration’s rejection of dialogue with Syria and Iran to try to calm Iraq is a mistake.

Kerry’s trip is the latest in a growing tussle between the White House and Congress over the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel that called for talks with Iran and Syria to win their help in stabilizing war-torn Iraq.

The Massachusetts Democrat said his visit to Syria was “a fact-finding mission” to explore “what might or might not affect behavior with respect to Hezbollah, Lebanon, Israel and Iraq, where in each of those cases Syria is playing a role.”

“Dialogue is an important thing. It’s very hard to move the ball if you don’t know firsthand what people’s needs are, what their own perceptions are,” Kerry said in an interview with The Associated Press and several other journalists in Cairo.

Kerry said he was “willing” to go to Iran for talks but had no current plans to do so.

[snip]

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice soundly rejected any talks with Syria and Iran in an interview with The Washington Post, saying any “compensation” they demand would be too high and that they should act on their own if they want stability in Iraq.

Kerry called the refusal to talk to Syria and Iran “a mistake. I think it’s the kind of policy that’s got us into trouble in the reason and it needs to change.”

The former Democratic presidential candidate underlined that he was not engaging in negotiations with Damascus.

“Talking to somebody is not rewarding their behavior. I have no illusions about our differences with these countries ... and nothing in the discussion is based on trust,” he said. “But you cannot get to (action and verifiability) without setting up the modalities. So you have to engage in some dialogue.

“Now that the Democrats are in control of Congress, we have an even larger responsibility to set a direction ... as a counterbalance to policies that have gotten us into trouble.”

Kerry, who met Thursday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, was heading to Jordan, then to Iraq. He visits Damascus early next week, where he will hold talks with Assad. He also planned stops in Lebanon, Israel and the West Bank in the nine-day tour.

Great to see - reading every word!

John Boustani wrote about his concern over giving away the store to Syria and enabling them to ride roughshod over Lebanon.

I remember this Q&A that Sen. Kerry did after his speech at Georgetown.  One of the questioners asked the Senator about Syria and Kerry was not too optimistic about the state of affairs in that country.  (This was in Oct of 2005, well before the war in Lebanon this summer.)

Sen. Kerry said that Syria was and is likely to be a ‘bad actor’ in the Middle East for a good while to come. He did not trust them and he was deeply concerned that a change of leadership in Damascus might even produce something worse. Based on those comments, I don’t think Kerry expects the Syrians to suddenly become ‘the good guys’ in this situation at all. Syria will try and do what benefits Syria and it seems to me, based on his comments since, that Sen. Kerry would be very, very careful in dealing with them.

I think the US has to make peaceful overtures to those who might have a hand in stabilizing Iraq. The Shia in Iran and Syria have a piece of that puzzle.  That doens’t mean that you roll over for these people, but there is a need to have an open channel to talk to them.  (Warily.) I am glad Sen. Kerry is doing this. I think he has a grasp of the greater picture and what Syria and Iran hope to gain from this. The White House is hoping to spin it some other way, as if people like Chris Dodd and John Kerry, who between them have decades of experience with foreign policy, have no idea what the stakes are. They are not the ones who are clueless here.

Evan Bayh has done an abrupt about face and dropped out of the ‘08 race, just one week after an appearance in NH and 2 weeks after announcing he was forming an exploratory committee: Bayh Out of ‘08 Race.

Sen. Arlen Specter, a 26-year Senate Republican, said he will visit Syria despite loud objections by the Bush administration, contending the situation in Iraq is so dire that it is time Congress step up to the plate and see what it can do.

http://tinyurl.com/tntzy

I think it’s significant that Sen Specter has decided ‘enough is enough’, and has bucked the White House by announcing a trip to Syria.

Let’s just hope he doesn’t cave this time.  He does have a history of taking a stand against the administration, then backing down when push comes to shove.

For now, though, I have to give my senior Senator props for doing the right thing.  I only hope Sen Kerry’s leadership and the ISG report will embolden others to do the same.

This isn’t a Democratic issue or a Republican issue.  As Sen Kerry so correctly states, it’s a moral issue.

Thanks and safe travels to Senators Kerry, Specter, Dodd and others who are willing to stand up and speak out.

While I’ve long stopped calling GWB by any nickname (he is not a child, he is an adult, he is responsible and accountable for his actions), I have yet to call his tenure in our White House as anything other than a “misAdministration.” 

There are millions of people in this country who do not think GWB took the highest office in our land by legal means in 2000, who do not think he represents this country or the thinking of people who live in this country, not to mention our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

John Kerry is a grownup, I’ve said that for years now.  In my thinking, he has long represented the “grownup wing of grownup Americans” and I personally couldn’t be happier or more relieved to know he’s taken his intelligence, integrity, good sense overseas. John Kerry can represent me any day of the week.

Bless you and thank you John Kerry.  Your actions have always spoken louder than your words.

Posted by Judith | December 16, 2006 1:47 AM

Judith writes:
“He has no business going over to The middle East.  They are our enemies.”

Judith, you’re correct, they aren’t friends, but isn’t that the point?  If we were all pals, there would be no urgent need. Obviously, you believe it’s important to talk to people with whom you disagree.  Isn’t that why you’re here?  To present your point of view to people who have opposing positions?

As for “having no business”, Senator Kerry is a United States Senator and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  This is his job.

How can we lead the world, Judith, if we won’t talk to it?  Bush and Rice are acting like a couple of petulant third graders.  They don’t like what Syria and Iran MIGHT say, so they just refuse to have the discussion.  That is not diplomacy, it’s childishness.
The world needs to see that we still have grown up leadership in the US.  That’s what this trip will accomplish.  We are not isolationists, we are leaders.  That’s a role this administration has refused to embrace.

Over three and a half years, and Bush has still not explained why he got us into this mess.  How much longer are we supposed to wait until he lets us know how he plans to get us out?  He may be the self anointed “decider”, but what have his decisions accomplished?  They’ve gotten us involved in a half a trillion dollar war with absolutely no exit strategy.  Mr Bush needs to listen, for once, to other points of view.

Bush’s plan continues to be ‘stay the course’.  He’s just not calling it that. Nothing has changed.

Meanwhile, people are dying.

Senator Kerry’s trip to the Mideast is a much needed, long neglected try at diplomacy.
Talking to the leaders of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and possibly even Iran is a first step towards resolving what seems to have become an impossible situation.
Bush would do well to listen to the findings of the Senator and his colleagues upon their return .

M. Loutre: while JK certainly outranks many Senators in terms of [a**]-kickery, Senator Biden was actually the ranking member of the SFRC in the 109th Congress.  When Senator Biden becomes committee chair next year, the next top-ranking Dem will be Senator Dodd, who is touring the ME with JK at the moment, followed by JK. 

This is an easy mistake to make, because, for my money, the tough and cogent question stylings of JK and Senator Boxer make the SFRC hearings some of the best entertainment on any of the C-SPAN networks.  (If that sounded insincere, I assure you, it was not.)

Judith and Kevin, while I respect your opinions and appreciate your taking the time to comment here, I would have to disagree with your views that this trip is somehow not part of Senator Kerry’s “job”.

Please note that Senator Kerry has explicitly stated that he will not engage in negotiations, is just doing fact-finding:

The former Democratic presidential candidate underlined that he was not engaging in negotiations with Damascus. “Talking to somebody is not rewarding their behavior. I have no illusions about our differences with these countries ... and nothing in the discussion is based on trust,” Kerry said. “But you cannot get to (action and verifiability) without setting up the modalities. So you have to engage in some dialogue.”

I think it makes sense, as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, charged with certain responsibilities regarding foreign policy, that Senator Kerry and other members visit these nations where the decisions are so critical.  It is too important to our nation for Congress to simply bow to the wishes of the executive branch. I think our Founding Fathers got it right when they created 3 branches of government with shared responsibilities and control.

Hello, I’ve just read a little about visits to various countries and regions in the middle east being a “fact-finding mission”!  Well, hallelujah!  It’s about time!

Why is it that the American administration gets to choose, without justification, which governments CAN be spoken to and which can’t?  I’m Australian and my problem is that if your Prez tells our PM - NO!  You must never speak to them!  We don’t.  We can’t.  We’re not allowed to!

There have been terrorists since there has been human occupation on the planet.  It is a fact of the continuum of life and the greed of the human condition.  Neanderthal terrorists probably used rocks to barricade the doors, air and waterways to starve out whole populations who were in the way. 

Not a lot has changed really.  Todays most frightening terrorists are the ones who dress in expensive suits spreading their comfort across the globe.  How lucky we are to have these terrorists sending our armies off to protect us against their designated *enemy* terrorists.  Our presidents, prime ministers and dictators who cheated, or were elected, into the top job of our countries are the scariest terrorists I know of. 

Alexander Downer our Foreign minister (well, he’s certainly foreign to most Australians) stood between Mme Rice and the simply-smiling Brendan Nelson, our Minister for War in Iraq, I think, and said, “Australia is not a fair-weather friend.  We will be with you (no matter how murderous and disastrous your strategy) to the end (till we are dead).”  Don’t we make great friends?  Not a brain cell between those 3 Decision-Enactors.

Now ....... wherever these leaders tell us not to go ..... whoever they tell us we must not talk to ........ they are the very people we need to find, communicate with (includes a LOT of listening and respecting) and convince ourselves that we ALL want the same thing - and it’s not oil!  Most of us - apart from the greed machines of the corporate west - want peace and social justice across the world.  Doesn’t seem like too much to wish for.

Thanks John Kerry for demonstrating reason in this debacle.

Welcome Woz,

It is so refreshing to see people from around the world come here with a voice of reason. As you can tell, some of the sheeple (Judith) would rather go along with more of the same, which you put quite rightly in place with your words of reason and common sense.

I will tell you this the world and all of its people are missing out on a principled leader like John Kerry. If we all continue to let power rule us, we are all doomed.

Please stop by again, we are mostly reasoned individuals here, although we do have a few that drop by that are still drinking the kool-aid (they have no idea how to think on their own so they just go along with more of the same).

You are correct ” Most of us want peace and social justice across the world.” That is why we are here and in support of Senator Kerry, for he wants the same.

Peace.