If private citizens met a few years ago with the ambassador of a hostile country, then top US officials should do the same in the current sensitive context. That was the liberal logic Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News put on display this morning during 'The Long & the Short of It' segment on Fox & Friends Weekend. The topic was the conflict in the Middle East. Ratner decreed that the time had come for bringing in the "partners" in the area, and that in addition to Lebanon, "that means Syria." Syria? Partner? What-evuh.
Complained Ellen: "We have not even spoken to the Syrian ambassador to the United Nations" adding - as if this clinched the case - "somebody Jim and I met with!" Concluded Ratner: "The United States has not spoken to him in a year-and-a-half, and he's in Washington!"
Jim Pinkerton, the Newsday and TCS columnist who is Ellen's conservative counterpart [seen here with Ellen in a file photo], observed wryly: "Ellen and I did meet with him about three years ago. I'm not sure he said very much. I'm not sure he was very helpful or would be very helpful."
Continued Pinkerton: "What Ellen is locked into here is the mindset that this is somehow going to be negotiated. [Israel and Hezbollah] agree that there is a real war here. As long as Nasrullah is alive he'll want Israel to be dead, so I don't really see what bringing in France, or Germany or for that matter Syria has to do with making a settlement that actually stops Hezbollah from firing rockets into Israel."
Precisely.
