Pelosi: For Whom The Kelo Tolls?

The American Spectator: Nullification Nancy
By The Prowler
Published 7/5/2005 12:09:06 AM

House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi is known amongst even her Democratic colleagues as one of the less cerebral members of the House. But even her staff was stunned by her seeming inability to understand the recent Kelo Supreme Court ruling regarding governmental property seizures...

When asked about Kelo and its implications, as well as moves afoot by some Republicans in both houses to negate the ruling, perhaps by barring use of federal funds on projects that involved the state or local taking of land, Pelosi responded thusly:

"It is a decision of the Supreme Court. If Congress wants to change it, it will require legislation of a level of a constitutional amendment. So this is almost as if God has spoken. It's an elementary discussion now. They have made the decision."

Later, she insisted: "Again, without focusing on the actual decision, just to say that when you withhold funds from enforcing a decision of the Supreme Court you are, in fact, nullifying a decision of the Supreme Court. This is in violation of the respect for separation of church -- powers in our Constitution, church and state as well. Sometimes the Republicans have a problem with that as well. But forgive my digression..."

Left unsaid is that Pelosi and her husband--together worth many many millions, with ownership in hotels, vineyards and downtown San Francisco real estate--are precisely the kind of persons who benefit from Kelo.

Unlike the Left, I have a hard time labeling opposing politicians as stupid, especially those with Pelosi's accomplishments. Reagan, Sonny Bono, both Bushes, Quayle... there have been too many worthy folks on the Right tarred with this puerile brush, and most were, in the end, quite brilliant individuals. So I'm not about to start that with Pelosi.

But I'm happy to toss a rude spotlight on how Pelosi stands to benefit from Kelo as a downtown developer type. This, more than any conjecture of idiocy, best explains her halting and incoherent response to Kelo, which included not a molecule of empathy for the "little people".

Pelosi, indeed, is the prototypical limousine liberal. If there is a silver lining to the horrifying Kelo decision, it's how it's leaving the massahs of the Left exposed in their hypocrisy.