Nancy fancies exceeding her authority

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently sallied forth to Syria as head of a Congressional delegation.?She took along the usual suspects and a lot of baggage.?Apparently though, she forgot to seriously consult the Constitution before she left.?

How else can her bizarre behavior be explained??Clearly, the Constitution conveys no specific authority for such an expanded foreign policy role for the Speaker, or for that matter, any other House member of either party.?To the contrary, my reading of the Constitution suggests a limited role, not only for the Speaker, but for the entire House of Representatives, in matters of foreign policy.

Indeed, one of the key differences in the relative powers of the House and Senate is the latter?s? ?advice and consent? role in such presidential? foreign policy actions as treaty-making and appointment of ambassadors, secretaries of state, defense and other key foreign policy officials in the Executive Branch.

So, the intent of the Constitution was, and is, to limit the role of the House in matters of foreign policy, not to expand it.?Traditionally, members of the House, including the Speaker, have recognized and abided by such limits.

Not so, Speaker Pelosi. According to a member of her delegation to Syria, ?We have an alternative Democratic foreign policy.?? That assertion would be silly ? if it weren?t so serious.?The Democrats are, of course, entitled to their own opinions on foreign policy.? However, they are not entitled to their own facts about how the Constitution both grants and limits the foreign policy powers of the president and Congress.

Speaker Pelosi seems to be having a ?PIC,? as in ?personal identity crisis.??In Nancy?s fancy, she sees herself as the exemplar of the voice of reason for the loyal opposition to President Bush on the war in Iraq and other foreign policy matters as well.?So far, so good.? But when her vision trespasses on to the Constitutional turf reserved for President Bush and the Senate, her foreign policy fancy becomes her foreign policy faux pas.

To put it as tactfully as possible, Speaker Pelosi is walking a fine line between loyal? opposition and petty partisan politics when it comes to U.S. foreign policy toward Iraq, Syria and the rest of the Middle East.?Her Syrian sally may have crossed that line.?

If so, her trip could come back to haunt her and her fellow Democrats in 2008.

As columnist Thomas Sowell has aptly observed, ?Democrats can have any foreign policy they want ??if and when they are elected to the White House.??Until then, they would be wise to read and heed the Constitutional limits on their foreign policy powers as members of the House and the Senate.?To do otherwise sends a mixed message of American disunity ? to friend and foe alike.

As for Nancy?s fancy, a good friend of mine ? a longtime Democrat ? put it succinctly when he said, ?Nancy Pelosi has about as much business being in Syria as I do!??Amen, brother.

Thomas B. Vaughn is an instructor at Motlow College and co-host of the radio show ?Viewpoints,? which airs on WCPI 91.3 FM.