Matthew Yglesias responds to the media's Pelosi-in-Syria uproar here and here. Rarely has it been more important to remind everyone that the "politics stops at waters edge" myth is, well, a myth. Copperhead Democrats annoyed Lincoln by visiting Great Britain and France while those countries were considering intervening on the behalf of the Confederates - though Lincoln never isolated himself by making a refusal to talk to potential enemies a platform plank. Henry Kissinger was negotiating with the Vietnamese Communists on Nixon's behalf while Johnson was still in office, and (running the risk of offending my lefty friends) probably shortened our stay in southeast Asia by demonstrating that while the president may have been unyielding and unreasonable, other powerful Americans were not.
And now Pelosi is talking to Assad. If Bush hadn't displayed such childish intransigence, it wouldn't matter. But since he has, someone needs to be the grown-up.
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