Of all the members of the U.S. House who should be laughing out loud at the shenanigans of the MAGA cult, it is the most recent Democrat to hold the office of speaker of the House.

That is Nancy Pelosi, who now carries the title of “House speaker emerita,” which I guess is a way of declining to identify her as just another member of the House, representing her Bay Area, Calif., district.

Oh, no. She is a woman of supreme accomplishment, serving as the only (so far!) female House speaker. She served two stints as the Lady of the House, from 2007 to 2011 and from 2019 to 2023. Yes, she had more comfortable majorities than what the current Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, has working with him; although Pelosi’s Democratic majority in the 117th Congress was just 10 seats, which gave her little wiggle room to enact legislation.

She still got the job done.

Moreover, while Speaker Johnson and his immediate predecessor in office, Kevin McCarthy, have battled the MAGA crowd in the House, Pelosi had to do battle with her own intraparty demons. They comprised an equally vocal cabal of ultra-progressives who wanted her to veer far from traditional Democratic orthodoxy. Pelosi’s response to The Squad and others on the far left? Pipe down and be quiet!

She never lost control of the House, which is happening now with Johnson having to fend off challenges to his own leadership from within his own party.

The House managed to approve many landmark bills during her watch as speaker, most notably the Affordable Care Act, when she held the Democratic caucus together to see the ACA become law.

So … let’s not vilify the speaker emerita just because she is a “liberal Democrat.” I choose to recall with admiration and respect the job she did as the No. 2 person in succession to become president of the United States.

She was a powerhouse … period and full stop!