The Hollow Man

I love it! Nancy Pelosi has announced that she's going to visit Syria in her upcoming trip to the Mideast. Bush is absolutely livid -- can't you just see him seething. Not only is some upstart from Congress one-upping him, but it's a woman to boot. President Pelosi is taking the reins -- perhaps a bit prematurely, since Bush hasn't been impeached yet -- and showing everyone that Bush is now nothing but a hollow man, a stuffed man, with headpiece filled with straw (to paraphrase T.S. Eliot.)

The leader of the US House of Representatives, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in coming days will visit Syria, a country President George W. Bush has shunned as a state sponsor of terrorism, despite being asked by the administration not to go.

"In our view, it is not the right time to have these sort of high-profile visitors to Syria," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters Friday.

Pelosi will not be the first member of Congress in recent months to travel to Syria, but as House speaker she is the most senior.

"This is a country that is a state sponsor of terror, one that is trying to disrupt the Saniora government in Lebanon and one that is allowing foreign fighters to flow into Iraq from its borders," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi, arrived in Israel on Friday on her second fact-finding trip to the Middle East since she took over in January.

Among those in her delegation is Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim member of Congress. Others traveling with Pelosi include Rep. Tom Lantos, the Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.