If you had any doubts about who is currently in charge of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, it isn’t Nancy Pelosi.

If you missed it, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Hamas) compared the United States and Israel to the Taliban and Hamas last week. This caused 12 House Democrats – yes, only 12, and all Jewish – to issue a letter asking Ilhan Omar to “clarify her words.”

@RepAuchincloss, @RepTedDeutch, @RepLoisFrankel, @RepJoshG, @RepElaineLuria, @RepKManning, @RepJerryNadler, @RepDeanPhillips, @RepKimSchrier, @BradSherman, @RepDWStweets

We urge Rep Omar to clarify her words placing the US and Israel in the same category as Hamas and the Taliban pic.twitter.com/KfcnmpLRO6

— Rep. Brad Schneider (@RepSchneider) June 10, 2021

This letter is hardly a ringing condemnation of Ilhan Omar, but it was the best the Democrats could offer – which is pretty sad, considering that Ilhan Omar is an anti-Semite who sits on the House Foriegn Affairs Committee. Omar snapped back at the letter, accusing the letter writers of “harassing” her. She also accused them of “islamophobic tropes” in their letter. Call me crazy, but there is no mention of Islam in that first statement. Perhaps someone is reading in criticism of herself as “Islamophobia,” hmmm? Maybe Ilhan Omar is saying that any support of Israel is “Islamophobic”? Are we going to be getting any “clarification” on THAT comment?

Clearly, House Democrat leadership wanted none of this. The caucus is fragile and narrow enough as it is, so Ilhan Omar put out a statement that was designed to placate the 12 letter writers, which seemed to do the trick.

Rep. @IlhanMN puts out a statement clarifying her remarks earlier this week: "I was in no way equating terrorist organizations with democratic countries with well-established judicial systems. pic.twitter.com/5hlpo8tkdP

— Nicholas Wu (@nicholaswu12) June 10, 2021

Pelosi and company then rushed out to applaud Ilhan Omar for making the Jewish Democrats feel better. One has to wonder how many conversations happened behind the scenes to try and tie this up with a neat little bow.

The joint statement by Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.), Assistant Speaker Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Vice Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) came after Omar responded to a request from a dozen Jewish House Democrats to “clarify” what she meant in her original remarks.”

“Legitimate criticism of the policies of both the United States and Israel is protected by the values of free speech and democratic debate. And indeed, such criticism is essential to the strength and health of our democracies,” the Democratic leadership team said in its statement.”

“But drawing false equivalencies between democracies like the U.S. and Israel and groups that engage in terrorism like Hamas and the Taliban foments prejudice and undermines progress toward a future of peace and security for all,” the statement adds.”

That clarification appeared to satisfy Pelosi and her team, who said in their Thursday statement: “We welcome the clarification by Congresswoman Omar that there is no moral equivalency between the U.S. and Israel and Hamas and the Taliban.”

And the media, like the ever-faithful Democrat mouthpieces that they are, rushed out to cover that Democrat leadership had “rebuked” Ilhan Omar. Politico said it. So did The Guardian. So did USA Today. So did Fox News, for that matter. The narrative had gone out, and the media was going to faithfully repeat it to make sure that this drama was considered over.

Then Nancy Pelosi herself torpedoed the media narrative. We did not do that thing that you think we did.

Pelosi bends the knee to The Squad pic.twitter.com/WAEZA3ao9N

— Vince Coglianese (@VinceCoglianese) June 13, 2021

So much for that “rebuke.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday said House leadership “did not rebuke” Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar last week, after criticism from the left that the caucus was unfairly targeting Omar and mischaracterizing her comments about the US, Israel, Hamas and the Taliban.”

“We did not rebuke her. We acknowledged that she made a clarification,” Pelosi told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.” “Congresswoman Omar is a valued member of our caucus. She asked her questions of the Secretary of State. Nobody criticized those, about how people will be held accountable if we’re not going to the International Court of Justice. That was a very legitimate question. That was not of concern.”

You know who else knew this wasn’t a rebuke of Ilhan Omar at all, but something that got swept under the rug so that it could be covered up? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Also appearing on “State of the Union” Sunday, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York told CNN that she believes Omar’s comments were “absolutely mischaracterized” and taken out of context by right-wing websites.”

“When we feed into that, it adds legitimacy to a lot of this kind of right-wing vitriol. It absolutely increases that target,” she told Bash. “And as someone who has experienced that, it’s very difficult to communicate the scale and how dangerous that is.”

Asked if she wants people to let the matter go, Pelosi replied, “She clarified, we thanked her, end of subject.”

Ocasio-Cortez later added, “As Speaker Pelosi said, we are putting this behind us and I believe that we will ultimately come together as a caucus.”

AOC knows exactly who is in charge of House Democrats now, and it isn’t Nancy Pelosi. Nancy Pelosi knows it isn’t Nancy Pelosi. Ilhan Omar is now untouchable by other Democrats, and her fellow Hamas-loving Squaddies know it, as can be seen by Rashida Tlaib‘s comments on Twitter and AOC’s comments on Twitter, and on CNN today. Nancy Pelosi surrendered a long time ago to Ilhan Omar and her ugly anti-Semitism. Today’s comments are merely the acknowledgement that Pelosi knows that the Democrat majority in the House is hanging by a thread, and in order to keep it means cowering before Ilhan Omar, even when she says insane crap.

The Democrats are caught in a power struggle that they thought was over when they made sure Biden won out over Bernie Sanders in the primary. The struggle is over for the House Democrats. Ilhan Omar, and the rest of her Hamas Caucus, have won.

Featured image: original Victory Girls art by Darleen Click