Steny Hoyer beat out the Pelosi-backed front-runner, Jack Murtha who claimed that he had the votes.

As expected, Pelosi won the position of Speaker of the House, the first woman to do so:

Nancy Pelosi was unanimously named speaker-elect by House Democrats Thursday, the first woman to be ensured the post that constitutionally is second in line of succession to the presidency.

Let's say a prayer for Dick Cheney tonight.

Hoyer won by an astounding 63 votes. I guess the new Congress didn't like Pelosi's candidate.

Nancy Pelosi's Middle East trip is getting high marks from the leader of terrorist state Syria:

Syria on Tuesday hailed what it called the "courageous position" taken by Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the US House of Representatives, after President George W. Bush criticised the Democrat's trip to Damascus.

Ms Pelosi arrived on Tuesday for what is the highest level visit by a US official in more than two years. She is to meet President Bashar al-Assad today as she seeks to "build some confidence" between the two countries.

As I wrote previously, Speaker Pelosi has undertaken this trip for one reason and one reason only: to undermine the President on his foreign policy. It's not the first time and several Republicans are there. However, none with the stature of Ms. Pelosi.

She seemed to have no problems fitting in to the misogynist culture.

You've got to give Nancy Pelosi credit. Only she would have the guts to claim moral high ground on corruption and ethics as a campaign strategy, and then invite an ethically-challenged fellow Democrat and former House Speaker as your guest at the State of the Union:

Former House Speaker Jim Wright was there when Nancy Pelosi was just starting out in Congress. Tuesday night, he was on her guest list as Pelosi took her seat as House speaker behind President Bush for his state of the union speech. Wright, a Fort Worth Democrat who served from 1987 to 1989, swore in Pelosi after she won a special election to Congress in June 1987. Wright left Congress in 1989 during an ethics investigation.

Wikipedia has a brief synopsis of the ethics investigation of Wright.

The Financial Times just reported that Secretary of State Nancy Pelosi conveyed a personal message to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stating that Israel was ready for peace talks with Syria. The only problem with the story is that it is not true. Here's Pelosi's claim:

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Wednesday she gave Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a message from Israel that the Jewish state was ready for peace talks.

"(Our) meeting with the president enabled us to communicate a message from Prime Minister (Ehud) Olmert that Israel was ready to engage in peace talks as well," Pelosi told reporters in Damascus after talks with Assad.

"Peace in the Middle East is a high priority ... We were very pleased with the reassurances we received from the president that he was ready to resume the peace process. He was ready to engage in negotiations (for) peace with Israel," Pelosi added.

And here's the astoundingly quick response from the office of Prime Minister Olmert:

When I first posted on Grandma Pelosi's request to use a plane significantly larger than her predecessor, Dennis Hastert, used for transportation from Washington to her home, I was very clear that I had no problem with Pelosi getting a plane, just not one that big. And forget about her needing the larger plane to fly non-stop. Who cares if she has to refuel at an Air Force base? The plane (the C-20) has modern communications gear specially installed for the Speaker, and I doubt if the military is going to try to take Pelosi out while she's on the runway. Besides, the military has another business class jet similar in size to the one Hastert used (a C-37) that can fly cross country non-stop (range of 5,700 miles).

The New York Times published a scathing editorial this morning on the disaster that Nancy Pelosi barely avoided yesterday by her own caucus voting against her wishes and electing Steny Hoyer Majority Leader in the House.

They also hint at Hoyer having some problems of his own, but certainly not being the ethics disaster that is John Murtha. But the Times does think that Pelosi has already damaged herself significantly with the Murtha debacle and the Hastings-Harman fiasco in the House Intelligence Committee:

Nancy Pelosi has managed to severely scar her leadership even before taking up the gavel as the new speaker of the House. First, she played politics with the leadership of the House Intelligence Committee to settle an old score and a new debt. And then she put herself in a lose-lose position by trying to force a badly tarnished ally, Representative John Murtha, on the incoming Democratic Congress as majority leader. The party caucus put a decisive end to that gambit yesterday, giving the No. 2 job to Steny Hoyer, a longtime Pelosi rival.

Prediction - Steny Hoyer will be Speaker of the House within two years, before Pelosi's term is up.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will travel to meet with a man who most likely has been doing everything in his power to harm U.S. forces in Iraq:

ABC News' Jonathan Karl Reports: ABC News has learned Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi plans to visit Syria next week to meet with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. The visit will make Pelosi the most senior U.S. official ever to meet with President Assad.

Pelosi will be traveling to Syria has part of Congressional delegation. On the trip, she also plans to visit several other countries in the region, including Israel, where she will deliver a speech to the Knesset.

Yes, you read that right, the most senior U.S. official. Ever.

Pelosi, as Senator John Kerry did before her, is looking to undermine Bush administration policy by meeting with a man who in the last year has done nothing to stop insurgent elements from hiding within his country and attacking our troops in Iraq. Boy Assad also has fought Israel by proxy by supporting Hezbollah and is allegedly complicit in the death of senior Lebanese leaders.

While the mainstream media's news sections hid pseudo-secretary of state Nancy Pelosi's faux pas with Israel and Syria yesterday, the Washington Post's editors noticed it. And they let her have it this morning, in one of the harshest editorials against a Democrat that I've seen in that paper - Pratfall in Damascus, Nancy Pelosi's foolish shuttle diplomacy.

...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.

Where to start, where to start - aside from the fact that she was caught in a lie...

Pelosi is the third ranking elected official in our country. While we can laugh off ham-handed attempts at diplomacy by lower ranking Representatives or Senators such as the Republicans who just went to Syria or Senator Arlen Specter who went there last year, Pelosi is just one horrible event away from the Presidency. With such a position comes great responsibility - and the most important of which is to have, at the very least, a basic grasp of the situation. Furthermore, it's vitally important not to create an international incident, or make a fool of yourself in public overseas while on 'official' business. Pelosi failed at the first, and succeeded all too well at the second and third. From now on, I can picture diplomats all over the world rolling their eyes when Pelosi's name is mentioned. She is now just an international jester, not a leader.

No, it didn't start with the Speaker's visit to Syria. The virulence that many on the right have been directing at Nancy Pelosi has been there for a while. You could say that she's something of a perfect storm for conservatives. A liberal woman representing San Francisco, who ascends to her lofty perch following a stinging electoral defeat. To Republicans, Pelosi is just about the coarsest salt one could rub into their wounds. For some, but not all, there is the clear sense that her gender is doubly troubling.

But back to the Syria visit. You can reasonably argue that meeting with Assad was not a good move, and you might also condemn Republican Congressman Joe Pitts for doing the same thing a week before Pelsoi, as well as Republican Darrell Issa for following Pelosi's lead one day later. There's a valid point that our government should present a unified front when dealing with state sponsors of terrorism. On the other hand, given the administration's dismal leadership on Middle East matters, there's also a case to be made that any communication is better than none. Hey, at least Pelosi personally delivered a peace overture from the Israeli government to Mr. Assad. Update after the jump.

The Democrats came into office with a majority and high hopes. They pledged that they would change the "culture of corruption" in D.C. and make full-scale changes. That, of course, has not happened and the liberal caucus is not too happy with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi:

Protesting liberals grumble Pelosi has been too cautious setting policy during six months in the majority, especially regarding the Iraq war. The response is that Democrats will revert to minority status in the House if they stray too far to the left.

And they just may if the first six months of Pelosi's lack of leadership is any indication. Of course the war issue is paramount as Pelosi promised she'd take some kind of action. Unfortunately for her, realistic circumstances have won out and Pelosi realizes that she can't make the whole-sale changes the donks promised before the last election.

Since the Democrats took over, Pelosi has not lead the liberal caucus to any major victories -- check that, she has not won any real victories at all. The Dems have majorities in the House and Senate and have been bogged down in minutiae. Pelosi is not the leader they had hoped, she can't form coalitions and can't get any worthwhile legislation passed.

The Democratic presidential aspirants will face the same reality, if you coddle the far left base, you will eventually lose them when you actually have to make decisions and act in the best interest of the country. George W. Bush is facing true reality as we speak with the brutal backlash he's seeing with regard to the immigration bill.

The candidates have to learn that you can promise anything you wish, but once you get elected, conditions are not the same as they were when you were speaking to a large group of supporters. The downfall of once-respected leaders -- Pelosi, President Bush, John McCain, Trent Lott and Lindsey Graham -- shows just how serious issues are once they will affect those who've elected you.

Several items in the news today relating to the failure of the Democrats to deliver on the promises they made to voters last November. Bet you thought otherwise, based on the glowing coverage Grandma Pelosi and her cronies got last month after her 'First Hundred Days' success!

The first article (Pelosi Falls Short On Election Promises), contents of which are certain not to find its way to Katie Couric's newscast tonight even though it's written by reliable lefties Daniel W. Reilly and Jim VandeHei over at The Politico, contains what can be considered warning shots from members of the Left (CREW, Lee Hamilton, and the Brookings Institution). Perhaps this is The Politico's way of suggesting to Pelosi that she change some of her tactics so that they won't have to write stories critical of her. After all, they do give her an excuse in the first line of the first paragraph:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is discovering the cold truth about governing with a slim majority: It's much easier to promise behavioral change for Congress than to deliver it. Pelosi vowed that five-day workweeks would be a hallmark of a harder-working Democratic majority. So far, the House has logged only one. Lawmakers plan to clock three days this week.

The speaker has denied Republicans a vote on their proposals during congressional debates -- a tactic she previously declared oppressive and promised to end. Pelosi has opened the floor to a Republican alternative just once.

Pelosi set a high standard for herself when she pledged to make this "the most ethical Congress in history" -- a boast that was the political equivalent of leading with her chin.

That's it for the prognosticators and pundits. Let them turn their predictions to the Senate, because it's official: The Democrats control the House of Representatives. Nancy Pelosi is the first woman to be Speaker. Third in line for the presidency. It's a very different country starting right now.

The latest congressional representative to meet with Syrian President Assad was Rep. Darrell Issa (as in Republican Darrell Issa) on Thursday, a day after the visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Prior to Speaker Pelosi's visit of course, was the three-member Republican congressional delegation that met with President Assad a few days before Pelosi.

Issa said that he and other members of Congress would continue to encourage the Bush administration to engage Syria. Assad and Issa discussed "the mechanisms and means that must be available to build a solid U.S.-Syrian relationship." Issa commented, "I have no illusions. We have serious problems to be resolved, but we will resolve them."

Whatever you may feel about whether or not it is appropriate for anyone other than the president's oh-so-competent representatives to meet with foreign leaders that are on his "list", although not yet the axis of evil, it is the worst kind of political hypocrisy to accuse Speaker Pelosi of high-crimes and misdemeanors, so to speak, and not the Republicans who preceded and followed her into the same Syrian offices.

When Nancy Pelosi asked for a bigger plane to fly her family and fellow California politicians cross-country, she was rebuked by the Pentagon. As the second in line for succeeding the President, Mrs. Pelosi felt that she was entitled to special perks. Those perks were far more than those allocated to former Speaker of the House Denny Hastert and the military said she would be given the same treatment.

Enter old "cut and run to Okinawa" John Murtha:

Then the thuggish, ethically challenged Murtha weighed in - saying it would be a "mistake" to deny her request, "since she decides on the allocations for the Department of Defense."

..."I don't need to pressure them. I just tell them what they need to do," Murtha said of his efforts to secure from the Pentagon a plane for Pelosi.

Of course, the Pentagon is allowing Speaker Pelosi a plane, just not the enormous one she wants. That's enough for Murtha to threaten to withhold military funds. He is saying that if he and Pelosi don't get their way, they will conspire to cut funding for our troops who are fighting two concurrent battles in the greater War on Terror. That is the state of the majority party in Congress.

Speaker Pelosi said during the last election, ""The gavel of the speaker of the House is in the hands of special interests, and now it will be in the hands of America's children." Evidently, she wasn't just speaking rhetorically as these two are acting exactly like spoiled kids.

Let's at least deal with the facts about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her transportation needs. First of all, in accordance with the Constitution, she is third in line for the presidency (much as that may make many of you shudder); as they say, a heartbeat and a pacemaker away from the presidency.

According to the House Sergeant of Arms, Bill Livingood, he requested the plane for Pelosi. He stated that Ms. Pelosi did not request a larger plane for personal use to travel cross country without stopping.

In a written statement, Mr. Livingood said, "The fact that Speaker Pelosi lives in California compelled me to request an aircraft that is capable of making non-stop flights for security purposes, unless such an aircraft is unavailable....I regret that an issue that is exclusively considered and decided in a security context has evolved into a political issue."

Regardless of the rumors circulating, she never asked for a larger plane. The White House also stood behind Pelosi (not a common occurrence). According to Tony Snow,

"As speaker of the House, she is entitled to military transport and....the proper arrangements are being made between the Sergeant of Arms Office in the House of Representatives and the U.S. Department of Defense....We think it's appropriate....I think this is much ado about not a whole lot. It is important for the speaker to have this kind of protection and travel."

Pelosi's family would have to reimburse the Air Force if they used the aircraft.

So get over it. There are lots of important things out there to discuss.