Syriana

Here's the thing: everybody and their mother knew that Nancy Pelosi's trip to Syria wasn't special. John Kerry and Chris Dodd and REPUBLICAN Arlen Specter were there late last year. There's a GOP House delegation there right now. The only way you could possibly parrot the White House spin that Pelosi's trip is wrong is if you set your brain on "marinate."

And that's where we're at with today's media. Josh Marshall is correct.

Unless I'm a lot more dense than I think, neither of those was an answer. So it stands: Republicans visiting Damascus, Okay. Democrats, visiting, Hurts America.

As Greg notes here, the president said today that he doesn't like Republicans or Democrats visiting Syria. But he only gets his press office to make a stink when it's a Democrat.

Enough on this one. A bunch of reporters got played on this one. And now they're too embarrassed to retrace their steps.

It's really not enough to claim that news is made because of what the White House says. That's stenography. You can actually do the extra step, and consider whether or not the stupid crap they say is news. A lot of the time, it's not. And such a determination is not suggestive of bias, it's suggestive of journalism.

UPDATE: This picture of Pelosi in a hijab is really going to set the authoritarian Islamo-haters on the right ablaze. Apparently respect for culture should never be abided.