A common complaint in 2004 was how the damn Bush administration had just gone off and pissed off all our allies. Well, now we have the example of the esteemed co-president and four star general Mrs. Pelosi to follow. First, we learn how to appease our enemies. Now, she is teaching us that the proper way to keep allies close it to attack them and abandon them:

Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe returned to Bogota this week in a state of shock. His three-day visit to Capitol Hill in Washington to win over Democrats in Congress was described by one American supporter as “catastrophic.” Colombian sources said Uribe was stunned by the ferocity of his Democratic opponents, and Vice President Francisco Santos publicly talked about cutting U.S.-Colombian ties.

Uribe got nothing from his meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders. Military aid remains stalled, overall assistance is reduced, and the vital U.S.-Colombian trade bill looks dead. The first Colombian president to crack down on his country’s corrupt army officer hierarchy, and to assault both right-wing paramilitaries and left-wing guerrillas, last week confronted Democrats wedded to out-of-date claims of civil rights abuses and to rigidly protectionist dogma.

This is remarkable U.S. treatment for a rare friend on the South American continent, where Venezuela’s leftist dictator Hugo Chavez can only exult in Uribe’s embarrassment as he builds an anti-American bloc of nations. A former congressional staffer, who in 1999 helped author Plan Colombia against narco-guerrillas, told me: “President Uribe may be the odd man out, and that’s no way to treat our best ally in South America.

More Democratic rhetoric shown to be nothing more than bull.

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