Why are we honoring this woman — have we run out of humans?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a San Fransicko Democrat if ever there was one, announced yesterday, to no one’s surprise, that she won’t seek to remain as leader of her party’s congressional caucus. Thus ends a toxic two-decade tenure as one of the most powerful politicians in modern American history.

As The Wall Street Journal reports: “Mrs. Pelosi, 82 years old, who made history as the first woman to be named speaker, played a central role in the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the opposition to former Republican President Donald Trump and the response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, the party will need to decide on a new leader as it heads into two years in the minority ahead of the 2024 presidential election.”

“Pelosi,” Ben Shapiro tweeted, “will be remembered for three things: driving her party HARD to the Left, reorienting it to the extent that a San Francisco radical was now outflanked by an entire branch of her own caucus; spending more money than any human in history; and getting rich off stock trades.”

We don’t think Shapiro’s assessment is wrong so much as incomplete. Nancy Pelosi will be remembered for the most childish, most petty, most despicable breach of decorum in the modern history of American politics, which she achieved when on the night of February 4, 2020, she conspicuously and flamboyantly tore up President Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech while the nation looked on – in violation of 18 U.S. Code § 2071. It was a pathetic display, one befitting a petulant teenager, and it marked the bottoming-out of American politics. And it was premeditated, as evidenced by the little starter-tears she methodically worked into each section of the speech.

We challenge you: Name another politician who, given the history and the majesty and the gravitas of the office, would have defiled the speakership in such a way.

That’s what Nancy Pelosi will be remembered for.

As to the Left’s outrage at House Republicans for their refusal to genuflect for the vanquished speaker, media critic Joe Concha said this: “So if reading this trending topic correctly, some down here are calling Republicans classless because they didn’t stand and clap for Nancy Pelosi after her speech today … the same House speaker who showed such class when tearing up a State of the Union speech in 2020? OK then.”

Pelosi will, of course, be remembered for other things as well. Power Line’s John Hinderaker adds two more memorable items to the list:

First, she pioneered the tactic of drafting 1,000-page bills in secret and voting on them 24 hours later. Remarkably, no one in the liberal commentariat had any problem with this. It will be interesting to see whether the Republicans now do the same thing. If they do, it will be a scandal.

Second, Pelosi is a stock trader of genius. She has brought insider trading to a whole new level, generating a nine-figure net worth. And evidently it is entirely legal if you are the Speaker of the House.

Fox News’s Tucker Carlson remembered her with a brief video montage:

Tucker’s SAVAGE eulogy to Nancy Pelosi after she RETIRES from leadership will have you in TEARS🤣

pic.twitter.com/GBaTT3SyvO

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 18, 2022

Mom always said, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” To which we say, “Sorry, Mom, but Nancy Pelosi will be remembered — at least by thoughtful adults — as the most petty, childish, churlish, vindictive, privileged, and holier-than-thou speaker of the House in our nation’s history.”

Go ahead; change our mind. We’ll wait.

In the meantime, though, let’s not forget her impeccable investment timing. Nor her phony and opportunistic faith. Nor her soft-on-crime complicity. Nor her rigged January 6 dog-and-pony show. Nor her refusal to call for the National Guard. Nor her surreptitious effort to undermine the commander-in-chief. Nor her sleazy salon scandal. Nor her two impeachment farces. Nor her shameless demagoguery of George Floyd’s death. Nor her pandemic politicization. Nor her efforts to impose Pelosiville on the rest of us.

Want more pettiness, more childishness? Pelosi said yesterday on the House floor, “I have enjoyed working with three presidents.” Of course, she served as speaker alongside four presidents.

Pelosi herself — the “devout” “Catholic” who was denied communion due to her unquenchable thirst for killing unborn babies — had the audacity to invoke the Bible: “Scripture teaches us that, for everything, there is a season — and a time for every purpose under heaven. As Speaker, it has been my privilege to play a part in forging extraordinary progress for the American people.”

“Extraordinary progress”? If she does say so herself. And by whose measure, anyway? Are we getting better and cheaper healthcare because of ObamaCare? Are our roads and bridges and power grid in a better place due to that “infrastructure” bill she helped shove home? And how’s inflation looking with that laughably named “Inflation Reduction Act”?

When I think of Nancy Pelosi, I think of dignity,“ tweeted Joe Biden, who owes much to Pelosi in terms of bad legislation ram-rodded into law. "History will note her as the most consequential Speaker of the House of Representatives in history — she is first, last, and always for the people. America owes her a debt of gratitude for her service, patriotism, and dignity.”

The truth, of course, is that Pelosi represented the opposite of dignity.

No one person is all bad, though, and that certainly goes for Nancy Pelosi. With all sincerity, we suspect she’s a wonderful grandmother. And amid a long list of legislative assaults on both our Constitution and our treasury, we’ll give her great credit for a moment that history won’t remember as well as it should: Nancy Pelosi went to Taiwan earlier this year, and she was right to do so. She took that trip against the advice of a compromised Joe Biden, and despite the caterwauling and bullying of the Communist Chinese. It was a show of American loyalty and toughness and resolve, and American politicians of every stripe should take note of it.

“American democracy is majestic but it is fragile,” the departing speaker said during her 15-minute floor speech. “Many of us here have witnessed our fragility firsthand, tragically in this chamber. And so democracy must be forever defended from forces that wish it harm.”

It’s a republic, Nancy, not a democracy. But whatever.

Goodbye, good riddance, and best wishes.

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Updated with an assortment of Pelosi’s worst moments, and a few words about the time she got it right.