The Genius of Nancy Pelosi

I’m sure you recall—it was only yesterday—that House minority leader Nancy Pelosi claimed to have been almost in tears at Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s address to the Congress.

Pelosi was insulted to see a foreign leader suggesting that she and her president and even her nation did not understand the threat posed by Iran. No no one insults the intelligence of Nancy Pelosi with impunity. How dare Netanyahu accuse her of being naïve about such a serious foreign policy issue?

The condescension was too much for her psyche to bear. She was forced to hold back the tears. Between us, the normal reaction to an insult is more anger than tears.

For those who like to keep things in perspective, the Wall Street Journal editorialized this morning about Pelosi’s: “… most significant foray into Mideast politics.”

The Journal reminds us:

Shortly after becoming House Speaker in 2007, Mrs. Pelosi led a Congressional delegation to meet Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in Damascus. “We were very pleased with the assurances we received from [ Mr. Assad ] that he was ready to resume the peace process,” she reported after shaking hands with the dictator and adversary of America.

The visit was seen at the time as a rebuke to the Bush Administration, which was then trying to isolate Assad for the safe harbor he provided jihadists on their way to joining the insurgency in Iraq, his military support for Hezbollah, his depredations in Lebanon and his covert efforts to build a nuclear reactor with the help of North Korea.

Assad’s nuclear gambit wasn’t known at the time—it took an Israeli bombing run later that year to expose its existence. But the rest of Mr. Assad’s behavior was no secret even then, long before his name became associated with killing his people with sarin gas and barrel bombs.

Oh well. No one is right all the time.

At the least, we understand why the Israeli prime minister might have imagined that certain powerful Americans did not understand the politics of the Middle East. If his was an error, it was surely forgivable.