Gabe Neville, Pitts' chief of staff, said Monday the conference between Assad and the three Republicans was intended to be "low profile."

"It was done in cooperation with the administration," he said.

People doing things either in concert with or contravention of whatever an occupant of the White House would like is not abnormal. Jesse Jackson went to Iraq, Leo Ryan made the mistake of going to Jonestown and became the first US Congressman assassinated, and there is a long history of this.

This particular exchange is especially odious. "Politics as usual" covers a multitude of sins, but blasting a member of the opposition party while a member of your own is doing the exact same thing is hypocrisy of the first order. That is not "politics as usual," that's bullshit and it should be called.