More on Cantor and Policy Meddling

Recently I noted the problematic precedent of Eric Cantor opening up his own diplomatic line with Netanyahu. Today, Andrew Sullivan shares three other examples from readers:

"A reader writes: Another precedent that I can think of is Nancy Pelosi going off to meet with Bashar Assad of Syria three years ago in contravention to the clear policy of the Bush administration and the United States.

Another writes: How about Congressmen Miller, McDermott and Bonior going to Iraq in 2002 and trashing the shit out of Bush on American national television?

Another: Mark Kirk, the Republican who now holds Obama's senate seat, personally told Chinese officials not to believe US budget numbers. He even bragged about the incident on video."

In my mind, the only thing that comes close to Cantor and Netanyahu is Pelosi and Assad (admittedly, after only very basic research). There's no problem with Congressmen or private citizens openly expressing disagreement with the President, and if that takes place on foreign soil or in conversation with a foreign official, who really cares? That seems to me to be the situation with Miller, McDermott, and Bonior (all of them Democrats), and Kirk (Republican). Granted, Kirk's move might not have been the most tactful in talking to our creditors, but I don't see any attempt to open an alternative diplomatic channel with the Chinese in the way that Cantor appears to be doing. Pelosi is a tougher case. Superficially, she appears only to have made nice with Assad and passed on a message from the Israelis. That seems somewhat minor. The Bush administration argued that simply meeting with the Syrians undermined the policy of diplomatic isolation. I suppose that is in some sense similar to what Cantor did, in that case. Pelosi didn't seem to directly undermine anything the Bush administration had done in her discussion with Assad, but if simply discussing anything with Assad is counter to policy then I suppose she did and is kind of in the same basket as Cantor.