I think Matt's on the right track here.  Bush is a renegade president who is not functioning in any way to represent the American people.  As a result, Pelosi is trying to provide the legitimate kind of democratic government that Bush is refusing to engage in.  I've argued in my own diary that Pelosi  also is acting as a kind of "shadow president" in relation to the Iraq funding debate.  

What will be interesting is when the Republican "realists" make this connection and toss Bush aside.

I agree.  In fact, I would prefer her in the White House than any of the announced candidates for the office.

It not only embarasses Bush and his failures but, also Condi.  and notice how much better received she is?  Wait till she hits Saudi Arabia

but I have to say she's been doing a great job since January.

And obviously, this is humiliating for Condi.

Bush still has influence?  I thought he was a lame duck the moment this session of COngress was sworn in.

"Much of what America did in international affairs prior to the Bush Presidency was to act as sort of buoy, or a neutral third party in negotiations, a bulwark that other nations could broadly trust."

First post.  Love the tight focus on political mechanics and absence of fluff on this site.  Prompted to engage however by the above claim.  With all due respect, the foregoing is simply not true.  The US has been an on balance massively destabilizing international force for nearly the entire past century, if not before.  Consider the CIA alone and its innumerable interventions around the world, US arms sales, military interventions.  Central America in the 1980s.  2-3 million dead on the Indochina penninsula.  Suharto, East Timor, the Saudi fascists, and on and on.

Liberal Democrats often want to believe this "stabilizing global force" narrative, but it is just that, a narrative and not an objective historical description.  In fact the opposite is far closer to the truth.  Bush is easily the worst of the lot but not the first and not off the charts unusual relative to other Presidents.  Sad, but true.

"Neutral third party in negotiations"?  Um, no.  That is myth not history.

"America didn't always keep its word, and it wasn't always a perfectly done role, but there really was no alternative."

Perhaps not behaving like an empire?  Not ratlining Nazis to Latin America?  Mr. Stoller is attempting to sound "credible" to the politicos who refuse to disabuse themselves of the "shining city on the hill" notion or (less plausibly) is ignorant or our nation's actual history around the world.

I know the standard frame is more comforting but we do - and should - pride ourselves on appreciating reality.  Now I do not mean to offer some hyperbolic anti-America rant; other nations have a bad record as well, and were another to enjoy the dominance the US enjoyed after rest of the world was shattered following WWII, they would likely have behaved the same way.  And the US has played a positive role in many respects, but I believe net negative is far closer to the truth and this "neutral" arbiter stuff is, frankly, silly.

All that said, the point of the post stands: negotiation not confrontation is the way forward and Pelosi is to be applauded for engaging Syria in an effort to work toward solutions to the various problems we have created and that we face in the Middle East.  We need problem solvers not fire starters.

Transforming the United States into a postive global force requires we apprehend the actual role of the US state in world affairs, today, which I believe Mr. Stoller accurately recognizes, but also historically, so that we do not recycle the tropes and assumptions that have invariably justified and shaped unjust and unwise US policy in the past.  Only then we can devise a sensible diplomatic and defense policy, much as the former Rep. Dellums proposed before Clintonistas insisted on not realizing the peace dividend and squandered the very real opportunity from 1991-1993 to make a truly New World Order, not just one in which, as Bush Sr put it "what we say goes".

"Soft on defense" is an inevitable charge no matter what we do, but if we wish to remake our role in the world, actually remake our role and not merely shift our rhetoric, in order to actually increase the chances of global peace and security, we must confront, in a clear-eyed way, the roots of American foreign policy.

I wish Bush was irrelevant.

More Sec of State Pelosi.  Condi Rice is just not trusted around the world.  Of course, that is mostly because Bush isn't trusted.  So, who dealt with Darfur and is going to N. Korea?  Not Condi, it is Gov. Bill Richardson.  Pelosi's trip to Syria is just another embarrassment to this embarrassing administration.  Bush and Co. are trying and trying to create their own reality but reality has pushed back hard and they have no idea what to do now.

I mostly agree with Trond (that the US has been more destabilizing than stabilizing), but I'd limit the really bad effects to the post-Kennedy era - Vietnam and forward, although the post WWII anti-communism binge laid the foundation for Vietnam and beyond.  

But LandStander goes way to far in mistrusting the Dems.  Bill Clinton was not a neo-imperialist, and respect for the US was probably at its highest around the world during his Presidency.  His biggest mistake was allowing his Secy of State to push the 'America is the essential force' theme.

I'm not an isolationist, but an internationalist of the kind that thinks friends and enemies alike need to be dealt with honestly, but firmly.  Grape leaves in our hands, with the martial arrows well in the background.  We don't need to be and shouldn't pursue becoming the New Rome.  We don't need 200 military bases with US forces around the world.  Intelligence should concentrate on intelligence and not undermining governments and playing dirty tricks.  Terrorism shoudl be undermined and attacked with surgical skill and lots of cooperation with others - not pretending that this is some war of civilizations.  Alliances count, but they shouldn't be the only diplomatic routes we pursue.  Trade and globalization needs to be more than just a zero sum game for huge international conglomerates. The health of the planet and its peoples should be a major pillar of our policies.

With the perspective sketched above, ANY of the major Dem. candidates (including Pelosi or Gore) would move us in the right direction, as they and progressives largely support these principles.    

I was too wiped out when I came home and read that, but I seriously considered writing a diary with that title--and no question mark.

What struck me, first of all, is how this reminds us much the world needs America, and thus, how much power America has just by doing the most understated things--the way a great and powerful actor can convey so much with only the slightest facial expression.  This is the "soft power" America has in such abundance that Bush is absolutely incapable of recognizing--like a deaf man and a Beethoven string quartet.  And Pelosi, of course, is the most adept wielder of soft power on the American scene today.

Second, I was struck by sheer impotence of Bush's lashing out at Pelosi.  Did he actually think it would do anything?  Even with the M$M echo chamber backing him up like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, he is just so transparently lame.  This is not someone like John DiIulio, Paul O'Neil, Anthony Zinni or Richard Clarke--all folks whose criticism BushCo has tried to crush by personalizing (or threatening to personalize, in DiIulio's case) things at a schoolyard level.

For all their admirable qualities, none of these figures had the instutional position that Pelosi has.  Although they towered over Bush morally and intellectually, they had no capacity to maintain sufficient visibility in the media to maintain their narrative as opposed to BushCos.

But, of course, Pelosi has precisely that.  What's more, she has the diplomatic smarts to know that less is more in this game. That quitely building up her acheivements, brick by brick will stand her in much better stead than reflecting something similar to BushCo's histrionics of power.  Much as I yearn for her to be much more assertive in direct opposition to Bush, I know that this simply cannot be the way of things, at least not at this time.  Her diginified, restrained, less-is-more approach has the effect of draining the energy that BushCo normally generates by dragging policy differences down into the gutter of schoolyard personal attacks.

Of course, Constitutionally she is not the President.  But psychically, spiritually, morally, she is quietly assuming that role--doing, in a low-key way, precisely what Newt Gingrich so loudly and narcissistically claimed to be doing back 1995, but so totally failed to do.  And, of course, there are multiple reasons for this, but first and foremost are the twin facts that (1) we really don't have a functioning President, and haven't had one since Clinton left office, and (2) Pelosi is a kind of tested congressional leader of the sort we probably haven't seen since Lyndon Johnson lead the Senate Democrats back from temporary minority status back in the 1950s.

I could always be wrong, naturally.  So much of politics depends on factors no one can control.  But I sense a very real potential that we are only seeing the beginning of this phenomena.  Reid's sudden strengthening of his will against Bush on the supplemental strikes me as quite significant in this regard.  We know from experience that Reid is quite capable of this sort of steely resolve--and we also know that he can simply take a walk when we least expect it.  What we may be seeing the beginnings of (knock on wood!) is a steadying of Reid's focus, grounded by Pelosi.

I think things are going to get very interesting very quickly in the next few months, and perhaps even one or two members of the M$M might actually start to notice not only that Nancy Pelosi doesn't spook when Karl Rove shouts "Boo!" but that Pelosi is the one who's driving BushCo nuts, because she has the power that they have so ignominously squandered.

because Rice and Bush can not be trusted to report the purpose or nature of discussions that may take place.  It is a check on whatever is being discussed privately with Bush's representatives.

By doing this, Pelosi may also start to accustom the nation to her being in charge and doing stuff. This means that even after the election, even if it's HRC (who I have no doubt can firmly hold all things in her own hand) the president will have less power simply because we have become used to Pelosi wielding it and it will seem natural for her to do so.

This means a future president will have to actually work WITH the Speaker, not simply dictate.

On the political front, how has this played out?  The right-wing blogs flogged it for all it was worth (Bush criticisms of Pelosi), even though republicans had been going to Syria.  

Was there an official pushback on this?  I saw some of the liberal blogosphere push back, but it seemed to get drowned out, on CNN.  More of that fake "Beltway wisdom".

I think every month or so, there will be these type of ludicrous flare-ups of idiocy, that will overwhelm the blogosphere's ability to effectively get the counter-message out there.  The benefit is to muddy the waters between Pelosi and Bush.

And yet, we are the only one's who, in a messaging context, "have Pelosi's back".  

I think there might have to be started, some "monthly Pelosi action item", to get some coordination messaging across liberal formats interested in the truth, that bombard the various network and paper opinion analysts, with the facts of a faux controversy Bush and Co. gin up.

I didn't see any action items for this particular smear, just making fun of the obvious idiocy of Bush's smear.  But that's not enough.