The Rise and Fall of Nancy Pelosi

It wasn’t that long ago. Yet, it seems like forever. Remember when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was touted as a giant killer? 

You see, Pelosi single handedly defeated the Trump administration wish to build a wall on the nation’s Southern border. In so doing, she and her cohorts flashed yet another green light to anyone who wanted to invade the nation and profit from its beneficence. Since they had all voted far more money for a wall when Trump was not president, they were acting like political hacks, not as deliberative legislators. No one much cared. Nancy was superwoman. She had defeated the big, bad Trump.

Well, time flies, children. Now, the indomitable Pelosi has just been beaten down by her own political party. Led by the anti-Semitic wing, comprising young Muslims, young socialists and the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Democrats forced Pelosi to back down, to cave to pressure.  

She had wanted to pass a House Resolution condemning anti-Semitism, something that has lately taken up residence in Democratic minds and hearts. Faced with a backlash from the left, she watered down the resolution… to include every Democratic special interest group. So, Rep. Ilhan Omar won. Louis Farrakhan cheered. So did David Duke. The great Pelosi lost her own caucus.

David Harsanyi painted a picture of the abject Pelosi. In claiming that Omar was not intentionally anti-Semitic Pelosi was reduced to a groveling enabler:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who had initially supported a resolution that didn’t even name Omar, told reporters she didn’t believe the congresswoman’s comments were “intentionally anti-Semitic.” No lucid human believes Omar inadvertently accused “Benjamin”-grubbing rootless cosmopolitans of hypnotizing the world for their evil. These are long-standing, conspiratorial attacks on the Jewish people, used by anti-Semites on right and left, and highly popular throughout the Islamic world. Even the Democratic Party activist groups that typically cover for the Israel-haters, like the Anti- Defamation League, have condemned Omar. Yet, it was the lie that coursed through the Democratic Party’s defense of Omar.

Weak and cowardly the Democratic Party leadership refused to take a stand against Islamist anti-Semitism. Would you trust them to defend the nation? Would you trust them to stand tall against Islamist terrorism? 

OK, I'm joking. Didn’t we just spend eight years led by a president who believed that if white Americans and Israelis accept responsibility for the failures of non-white, non-American, non-Israelis… then all will be well? Accept your guilt, white people… and a new day will dawn. Islamist terrorism exists because of what white people have done. Once Obama went to Cairo to apologize for white America... the problem just evaporated. Do you believe that?

None of it should have been surprising. The Congressional Black Caucus has long since embraced Louis Farrakhan. As a group they boycotted a Congressional address given by the Prime Minister of Israel. And of course, President Obama, the reigning genie behind it all, happily treated the Israeli prime minister with a level of contempt he showed toward no other world leader. After all, the Obama policy of appeasing Iran and undermining Israeli security was based on the thesis that Jews were the problem, not the solution in the Middle East. Jeremiah Wright’s protégé had learned his lesson well.

Nothing of this should come as a surprise. Only those who have their heads in the sand will be shocked. Kevin Williamson explained the extent of anti-Semitism within the Democratic Party:

If the Democrats have a minor socialist problem, they have a major problem in the form of Jew-hating weirdos, preeminent among them the Reverend Louis Farrakhan of the so-called Nation of Islam. Farrakhan has been an out-and-proud Jew-hating weirdo for many decades now, but Democrats still feel the need to make gestures of obeisance before him: Anti-Trump leaders such as Tamika Mallory and Linda Sarsour of the Women’s March have embraced Farrakhan and courted his favor. Barack Obama came a-calling in 2005 when he was ramping up his political career. The Congressional Black Caucus has consulted him. Bill Clinton stood alongside him at Aretha Franklin’s funeral, implicitly elevating the cult leader. California Democrats Barbara Lee and Maxine Waters attend Farrakhan’s public events, and Obama-administration veteran Eric Holder recently posed for a picture with him.

Let’s not forget that Rev. Al Sharpton, now a talk show on MSNBC, was once valued as an advisor to the Obama administration. After all, he visited the Obama White House nearly a hundred times. Sharpton is clearly an anti-Semite. Williamson set down the facts:

MSNBC continues to prominently feature the Reverend Al Sharpton. He was Jussie Smollett before Jussie Smollett was in the matter of the Tawana Brawley hate-crime/rape hoax, and his rabble-rousing attacks on Jewish “bloodsuckers” and “interlopers” preceded the mass murder at Freddie’s Fashion Mart. He inflamed anti-Semitic passions leading up to the Crown Heights riots. Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes apparently are content to be affiliated with him.

So, in attacking Israel and in attacking Trump administration policy toward Israel and Iran, Rep. Omar was merely defending Obama administration policy. Those who hate Trump with a passion that is well beyond reason are hard at work undermining his presidency and his Middle East policy. 

They hate Trump for moving the American embassy to Jerusalem. They hate Trump for walking out of the Iran nuclear deal. They even hate Trump for developing good relations with Saudi Arabia. They care not a whit for the crimes the mullahs perpetrate on a daily basis, but the murder of Jamal Khashoggi—that was the worst crime ever perpetrated. Now, you will see, the radical left is pulling out its long knives to attack Trump’s Jewish daughter and son-in-law. Do they have dual loyalty? 

Of course, there is something utterly contemptible in the American left’s Jew hatred. That hatred is now the will of the Democratic Party itself, and its new leaders Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. As Victor Davis Hanson opined on Fox News the other night, of all the nations in the world, of all the nations that commit the most atrocious human rights abuses, the one nation that is systematically condemned is Israel.

It is perhaps too obvious to mention, but I will do so anyway. The systematic attacks on Jews and on Israel are scapegoating. When you fail and when you cannot accept that you have failed, you have to find someone to blame. You need to find a scapegoat.

Jews have often served that purpose. What other lesson would you draw from Israel’s success and prosperity?  After all, European Jews were nearly exterminated before and during World War II. They picked themselves up and created a great nation. And they did it on land that had previously been occupied by people who had created nothing. 

By the calculus of Palestinians and their enablers, Israel’s success made them look bad, made them look inept and incompetent. The shame felt by Palestinians has been too much to bear. So, Israel’s success seems like a permanent reproach to them. Rather than emulate Israel and set about building a state of their own, Palestinians have set about to destroy Israel, by any means necessary.

They have sacrificed three generations of their children to this lost cause. The more Israel succeeds, the more it gains status and prestige in the world, the more Palestinians and their enablers insist that Israel must be destroyed. When you cannot build anything yourself, you can only puff up your flagging self-esteem by destroying what others have built.

The message resonates in the minds of groups that consider themselves to be victims. They cannot accept that they have failed, that their communities are not oases, that their children are often lagging their peers in school. Instead of taking responsibility for their failures, they blame Jews. Isn’t there an organized international conspiracy designed to oppress minority groups? There, that explains it all.

As I have often noted on this blog, in the Middle East, Israel is the solution, not the problem. Lately, thanks in some part to the Trump administration, Arab nations in the region are seeing this truth. As Prime Minister Netanyahu has declared, relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors have never been better. Israel is enjoying good relations with Egypt, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. Rumor has it that Saudi Arabia had reached out and established ties with Israel. The Arab Middle East has woken up to the fact that the Palestinian cause is a lost cause. And that Palestinian terrorism has done little more than damage the reputation of Muslims around the world. Israel has something to offer. Palestine is merely a deficit and a deficiency.

For that today's Democratic Party will never forgive Donald Trump.