It's very likely that the Times lifted this directly from leftist bloggers like Greg Sargent, who were rifling through Nexis to find exactly these comparisons to defend Pelosi's bumbling Syrian tour. But as even Sargent admitted, the parallels aren't precise.

The Clinton-Gore team offered no criticism of the Gingrich trip, but merely stated he spoke for himself. Gingrich did raise eyebrows for making bold declarations about how America under the Clinton administration would respond militarily if China attacked Taiwan, but no one viewed this as political subterfuge. And America was not at war.

Cooper and Hulse also failed to mention the New York Times editorial from that time, which slapped Gingrich for making bold declarations on behalf of the American executive branch, but also praised Gingrich for being "refreshingly candid compared with the oblique criticism favored these days by the Clinton administration. ... Mr. Gingrich's comments on the Chinese political scene were in some ways more honest than Mr. Gore's anemic formulations."

Pelosi's Syria trip did pile up some negatives, not only from talk radio hosts, but even from a strongly critical unsigned editorial by The Washington Post. Even NBC's Matt Lauer eventually found "a lot of people thought she messed up." But the allegedly fearsome "Republican attack machine" on Capitol Hill? At best, it ran on a very low volume throughout Madame Speaker's daffy diplomatic adventure. At worst, it was pathetic.