“Were these children in the United States?” - the innate wisdom of Nancy Pelosi’s five-year old grandson

Normally when American politicians recount heart-warming conversations with their kids or grandkids about the major issues of the day, the purpose is to guilt opponents into supporting some nauseatingly unfair piece of equalitarian legislation: “Gee, Mommy, seems like people who have a lot should share their stuff with poor people who don’t have as much stuff” or “But, Daddy, it doesn’t matter what colour you are. We’re all, like, just people, aren’t we?”

I presume many Americans tear up when they hear these stories, otherwise their politicians would stop telling them. (Over here, of course, such tales tend to make us dry-heave for half an hour.)

The weird – really extraordinarily weird thing - about Pelosi’s conscienceless attempt to convince a sceptical American public that bombing Syria makes any kind of sense from whichever angle you look at it is that she got it all wrong. The rules of the game are simple: the child’s natural, untarnished compassion is supposed to make adults feel guilty that they’ve lost the ability to see those deeper truths that innocent eyes can discern without effort. “Wow,” they’re supposed to think, “that little kid has shown me how cynical I’ve become. From now on, I want all rich people to have their assets sequestered and all new jobs to be given to young blacks/Hispanics/Muslims rather than to my own kids.”

But what "Mimi" (ah - isn't that sweet?) is telling us is that her grandson is a natural conservative patriot. He evidently doesn’t believe in rushing into things without a good reason for doing so, and he’s more inclined to help children from his own country. For Nancy, this does not compute. Doesn’t Junior know that putting your own country’s interests first is wicked? Why does the nationality of the dead kids matter to him ? Doesn’t the little chap realise that countries are silly, man-made constructs, that we are all members of one enormous international family and this matters a whole heap more than where we come from? Next thing you know, the little stinker will be voting Republican and arguing against foreign aid and amnesty for illegal immigrants, and demanding effective border controls!

Pelosi wants to know who the hell filled the boy’s head with such nonsense! Obviously not his teachers, who’ll all be card-carrying socialist internationalists who despise America (after all, the conversation took place in San Francisco, a Mecca for liberal goofballs). And it couldn’t be his parents. That only leaves the media – “So I don't know what news he's listening to”. Nancy, I’m guessing he catches Fox & Friends before heading off to school, where, for some odd reason, the fascistic, Tea Party-lovin’, slavery-supporting, immigrant-hating, capitalist running-dog hosts are daily pouring scorn on the very idea of America getting needlessly involved in a spectacularly ugly civil war where it’s a pity both sides can’t lose. Racists!

The real mystery is what Pelosi was hoping to achieve by recounting this domestic tale. Given she’s not holding the little darling up as an example of liberal purity, is she implying that the vast majority of anti-intervention Americans are as dumb, selfish and naïve as your average five-year old? And that what they really need is a finger-wagging lecture from Grammy Pelosi to set them straight? But how does that work? We’re meant to admire the kid, not his deranged, poisonous old bat of a left-wing grandmother.

I suspect Nancy Pelosi didn’t think this thing through. Just as the Obama administration evidently hasn’t thought through the implication of plunging head-first into the hornet’s nest that is Syria.