Ed, what’s the ancestral nationality of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi? Six of us were watching her speak on TV and we each guessed.

Just Curious

The official word is that Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro Pelosi is Italian-American. She grew up in Baltimore, Md., one of six children and the only daughter of Anunciata and Thomas J. D’Alesandro. Her father was Baltimore’s three-term mayor and one-term congressman. Her mother emmigrated from Italy. But there’s an anti-Semitic Internet-chatter faction that wants to claim that she is, God forbid, a Jew and/or Jew sympathizer. — Ed. Note