Pelosi Train Wreck

"Sorry, Nancy. I don't shake hands with women."

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi greets Sheik Saleh bin Humaid, the head of Saudi consultative council and Imam of THE Mecca great mosque, during her visit to the Saudi council, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Thursday, April 5, 2007.(AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Nancy Pelosi has screwed up royally.

Yesterday, when she flew to Damascus to cozy up to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, I said Pelosi disgraced herself and the Democrat Party.

Her trip most definitely has backfired. Instead of embarrassing President Bush, she became the embarrassment.

CNN reported:

Syrian cabinet minister Buthayna Sha'ban expressed his support for the visit and said, "Syria stands for freedom and for peace, and so does Nancy Pelosi."

The Syrian media also praised the visit as a potential breakthrough in icy U.S.-Syrian relations, with the Syria Times calling her a "brave lady on an invaluable mission."

What a load!

"Syria stands for freedom and for peace, and so does Nancy Pelosi."

The Syrians and terrorist appeasers like Jimmy Carter applaud Pelosi but she isn't getting rave reviews across the board from her fellow libs.

The liberal propaganda promulgator Washington Post slams Pelosi in the editorial, "Pratfall in Damascus."

HOUSE SPEAKER Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered an excellent demonstration yesterday of why members of Congress should not attempt to supplant the secretary of state when traveling abroad. After a meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, Ms. Pelosi announced that she had delivered a message from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that "Israel was ready to engage in peace talks" with Syria. What's more, she added, Mr. Assad was ready to "resume the peace process" as well. Having announced this seeming diplomatic breakthrough, Ms. Pelosi suggested that her Kissingerian shuttle diplomacy was just getting started. "We expressed our interest in using our good offices in promoting peace between Israel and Syria," she said.

Only one problem: The Israeli prime minister entrusted Ms. Pelosi with no such message. "What was communicated to the U.S. House Speaker does not contain any change in the policies of Israel," said a statement quickly issued by the prime minister's office. In fact, Mr. Olmert told Ms. Pelosi that "a number of Senate and House members who recently visited Damascus received the impression that despite the declarations of Bashar Assad, there is no change in the position of his country regarding a possible peace process with Israel." In other words, Ms. Pelosi not only misrepresented Israel's position but was virtually alone in failing to discern that Mr. Assad's words were mere propaganda.

Ow! That has to hurt.

..."We came in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascus is a road to peace," Ms. Pelosi grandly declared.

Never mind that that statement is ludicrous: As any diplomat with knowledge of the region could have told Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Assad is a corrupt thug whose overriding priority at the moment is not peace with Israel but heading off U.N. charges that he orchestrated the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri. The really striking development here is the attempt by a Democratic congressional leader to substitute her own foreign policy for that of a sitting Republican president.

Yikes! When The Post criticizes Madame Pelosi in such a humiliating fashion, you know she's made a major boo-boo.

...Ms. Pelosi's attempt to establish a shadow presidency is not only counterproductive, it is foolish.

Pelosi, the fool.

The first woman Speaker of the House is deemed a buffoon.

As stinging as the criticism from Left-wing media outlets is, the rebuke from Israel is most damning to Pelosi's credibiltiy as a leader.

From The Jerusalem Post:

The Prime Minister's Office issued a rare "clarification" Wednesday that, in gentle diplomatic terms, contradicted US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's statement in Damascus that she had brought a message from Israel about a willingness to engage in peace talks.

According to the statement, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert emphasized in his meeting with Pelosi on Sunday that "although Israel is interested in peace with Syria, that country continues to be part of the Axis of Evil and a force that encourages terror in the entire Middle East."

Olmert, the statement clarified, told Pelosi that Syria's sincerity about a genuine peace with Israel would be judged by its willingness to "cease its support of terror, cease its sponsoring of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad organizations, refrain from providing weapons to Hizbullah and bringing about the destabilizing of Lebanon, cease its support of terror in Iraq, and relinquish the strategic ties it is building with the extremist regime in Iran."

The statement said Olmert had not communicated to Pelosi any change in Israeli policy on Damascus.

Apparently, Pelosi was so set on mugging for the media as an agent of peace that she ignored the inconvenient reality.

The officials said Olmert had told Pelosi that he thought her trip to Damascus was a mistake, and that when she asked - nevertheless - whether he had a message for Assad, Olmert said Syria should first stop supporting terrorism and "act like a normal country," and only then would Israel be willing to hold discussions.

The first part of that message, the officials said, was lost in what was reported from Damascus on Wednesday.

With all due respect to the Speaker, she has exposed herself as incompetent and a fraud. At the very least, she has to be seen as easily confused and a bad listener.

Now, Pelosi has moved on to Saudi Arabia.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Saudi Arabia's unelected advisory council Thursday, the closest thing in the kingdom to a legislature, where she tried out her counterpart's chair — a privilege no Saudi woman can have because women cannot become legislators.

Pelosi, the first woman speaker of the House, said she raised the issue of Saudi Arabia's lack of female politicians with Saudi government officials on the last stop of her Mideast tour, but she refrained from criticizing the kingdom over it.

"It's a nice view from here," Pelosi said as she sat in the chair, facing the ornate chamber with its deep blue and yellow chairs and gilded ironwork. "This chair is very comfortable."

U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos, the head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who was traveling with Pelosi, looked at the gavel in front of her and quipped: "It's a small gavel, Madame Speaker. You may want to wield it."

Pelosi later sidestepped a question on how she felt about the absence of female Saudi council members, saying: "I am very pleased that after 200-plus years in the U.S. we finally have a speaker. It took us a long time."

Pelosi cuts Saudi Arabia slack for failing to grant rights to women. She rationalizes that it takes a long time.

Too bad she has no patience when it comes to the fledgling Iraqi government.

...Pelosi was welcomed at the Shura council by its head, Sheik Saleh bin Humaid, who is also the imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca. He placed his right hand on his chest in a traditional Arab greeting, since conservative Islamic clerics don't shake hands with women, and she returned the greeting in a similar manner.

During her meetings, Pelosi did not wear the long black robe, or abaya, and headscarf that Saudi and non-Saudi women have to wear in the kingdom. Visiting female dignitaries are not expected to wear it.

Leader Pelosi doesn't even get a handshake!

Are we supposed to be impressed because she had the nerve to forgo the abaya and headscarf?

It's interesting.

When foreigners come to our country, we're expected to adapt to their customs. When Americans go abroad, we are expected to follow their customs. Go figure.

Cultural sensitivity should be a two-way street. It's not.

I never thought I'd say this, but I can't wait for Pelosi to come back to the U.S.

Mercifully, her Middle East tour ends on Friday.