The Absurd Report

Diplomacy: Three congressmen were caught traveling to praise prewar Iraq on Saddam Hussein’s dime in 2002. Others have made pilgrimages to pay tribute to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. This is getting out of control.

As the U.S. prepared for war in October 2002, Washington state’s Jim McDermott flew to Iraq on a Saddam-praising junket with fellow Democrats Mike Thompson of California and David Bonior of Michigan. Rather than support the U.S., they condemned U.N. sanctions, vouched for Saddam’s probity and publicly declared America’s democratically elected president a liar.

None of it had anything to do with the congressmen’s claimed concern for Iraqi children, but it did undermine the U.S. alliance-building effort. And by coincidence, it was exactly what Saddam wanted.

Now we learn the junket was just as it seemed at the time — a Saddam-paid propaganda production, starring three U.S. dupes. The congressmen say they had no idea, but they should have known and must be aware that people will seek to manipulate politicians.

In this case, however, Bush derangement syndrome seemed to trump all judgment in freelance diplomacy, and the result was a sellout of our interests.

So was another trip taken to the Andes last year by another Democratic threesome —

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