Only Repubs get pass to go a calling

Apparently the Washington beltway disdain for Congressmen visiting “evil axis” Syrian leaders does not apply to Republicans.

Vice President Dick Cheney said Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit of Syria undermined the American policy of isolating that country for harboring terrorists. He said it served as a reward for Syrian President Bashar Assad’s bad behavior. FOX News pundits severely criticized Pelosi, accusing her of “playing Henry Kissinger” and noting her botched Israeili “peace pipe” message was reason to confine her to the capitol hill kitchen and leave foreign policy to the pros.

But a week after Speaker Nancy Pelsoi conducted her Middle East tour, including meeting with Assad, Republican U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa of California did the same thing. Republican Congressmen Frank Wolf, R-Virginia, Robert Aderholt, R-Alabama, and Joseph Pitts, R-Pennsylvania, all visited Syrian leaders a mere three days before Pelosi.

The White House did not criticize them.

Did the Bush administration’s supportive media outlet, Fox News, bash Issa for making his trip? No. When Fox commentators were haranguing Pelosi they did not even mention the Republicans visiting Syria the same week.

Congressional trips overseas are not new. Issa also visited with Assad in 2003 and encouraged him to stop harboring terrorists that were attacking American forces in Iraq. Later, Bush’s Secretary of State Colin Powell met with Assad – a meeting which the White House at the time called a “candid exchange of views.” After that Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage visited Syria in 2005. So much for isolating the evil axis. Assad can hardly close up the hide-a-bed and fold the sheets before another American politician knocks on the door.

One cannot expect Bush or Cheney to miss a chance to criticize a Democrat. They have never pretended to be non-partisan (even though their solution to Washington partisanship is “do as I say”). And certainly no administration wants Congress to meddle in the good old boys club of foreign policy. But, FOX still trumpets its “fair and balanced” marketing slogan. Why can’t FOX’s founder and president Roger Ailes, a former Reagan and Nixon campaign operative, just admit that he’s dishing out Republican Party propaganda meant to undermine any leader of the opposing party?

In the words of former Sen. Bob Dole: “I know it. You know it. Eveyone knows it.” We all know it. Dispense with the pretense.

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For a different view on this topic, see: Congress, Pelosi should not overstep foreign policy bounds

Hypocrisy of Media Muckety Mucks

Don Imus has one consolation. His public "execution" this week also serves to expose the hypocrisy of media conglomerates NBC Universal and CBS, who buckled to critics clamoring to get the "shock jock" off the airwaves.

There is no doubt his "nappy headed hos" comment about the Rutgers women's basketball team was insulting and there is likewise little doubt that he did not mean it maliciously. This is what happens when someone tries to be funny and fails miserably. Certainly there is also no doubt the management (to whom Imus referred a few months ago as "money grubbing Jews") had accumulated plenty of reason and right to boot the potty mouth off the air.

But for NBC and CBS executives to appeal to the Al Sharpton mob by donning some holier-than-thou robe is disingenuous. NBC Universal and CBS own several of the cable television networks with programs broadcasting the rappin' Hip Hop language and fosters the very attitude that Imus was emulating or parodying in his failed attempt at humor. CBS owns the Showtime channel that shows a program called "White Boyz in the Hood", which coincidentally features white comedians acting Hip Hop and playing to a predominantly black theater audience. It is the modern day version of Al Jolson, without the black face makeup.

Sharpton was the leader of the villagers hunting down this Frankenstein of radio named Imus. Vocal among the enraged crowd was Democratic Party presidential hopeful Barack Obama. Obama's criticism of Imus was right -- the idea that young women and, particularly minority women, can be characterized with such insulting commentary is repugnant. It makes it difficult for parents such as him to raise daughters not to think such labeling is acceptable. But Obama was wrong if he believed getting Imus fired was going to serve to change that. Instead, the angry throng carried off Imus' corpse and now NBC and CBS, blessed with new authority, can continue raking in the millions made broadcasting and publishing the very same filth. After all, they turned the "bad" guy in.

Set aside for now the free speech implications of Imus' dismissal. The fact is he probably won't be missed. For one thing it is doubtful the Rutgers basketball women -- or most of the country for that matter -- had ever heard of Imus in the Morning until this blew up.

The problem is we do not see Obama or Sharpton, or anyone else who made political hay out of an obscure radioman's stupid quip, calling for the big networks to put an end to the junk rap television and music that young people do absorb. Until that happens it's business as usual and the challenge to parents of both black children and white children will continue. What NBC Universal and CBS is doing is no attempt at comedy. It is big business -- and our society is paying dearly for it.