The character of Nancy Pelosi

October 21, 2006

Guest Post by Michael J.W. Stickings

Let’s face it, Nancy Pelosi has long been taking a brutal beating at the hands of Republicans and their character-assassination machine. As a surprisingly positive profile of the House minority leader in today’s Washington Post explains, “Republicans have sought to scare voters by portraying Pelosi as a liberal extremist who would be weak on national security and prone to raises taxes if her party were back in control”.

Republicans hope to win next month by portraying Democrats as, in essence, enablers of terrorism and the enemies of GOP-defined freedom. It’s a smear campaign that has grown all the more desperate, and all the more repugnant, with poll numbers showing Democrats well ahead and poised to win back the House and, if all goes right in at least seven of eight key Senate races, the Senate, too, not to mention to do well at the state level.

Which is why Republicans aren’t even holding back in their relentless attacks on Pelosi personally. “On his Web site, Majority Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) calls the prospect of Pelosi becoming speaker ‘just plain scary’ and says: ‘While Republicans fight the War on Terror,… House Democrats plot to establish a Department of Peace.'” Such ad hominem rhetoric isn’t even shocking anymore. It’s how the GOP operates.

To be fair, Pelosi isn’t perfect. She can indeed be “stiff and tentative in public,” and, to me at least, she often seems to project an air of detached elitism and condescension that overwhelms the substance of her message.

And yet she is clearly ready, both personally and politically (note her fundraising success), to take on the Herculean task of cleaning up the House after 12 long years of corrupt and unjust Republican rule, as well as of reversing the Republican policies that have so damaged America both at home and abroad. It won’t easy, if the Democrats win, and there are many across the aisle who will wish her nothing but the worst and who, embittered further by loss, will attempt to thwart her at every turn, but I for one am eager to welcome the speakership of Nancy Pelosi.

I am do not know much about Pelosi but she is better than the present leadership. It is important to have a democratic congress to stop the spending and Iraq war. With the present debt of government and personal debt rising daily along with the increase in the balance of trade, our nation is going to a servant of foreign nations in a few years.

We are borrowing debt from our enemies such as China and may middle East nations. We are even borrowing debt from Mexico.

We need a balance to stop this crazy spending. Bring back Clinton.

  • Pelosi will be very successful if she can put together a team that will set the agenda and grab hold of the political debate. She will have to prevent any Republican games from detracting from her agenda, she will need to effectively call the shots about how the press will operate in her house on the Hill and she’ll need to put forth fully-formed and well-reasoned pieces of legislation that will be hard to oppose without looking foolish. She’ll have to make an example of the first Republican that crosses her and keep up the downward pressure on the minority party to quit acting like children. Respect is earned. I hope she’s looking forward to the work.

  • This plays perfectly into a strong Democratic campaign for cleaning up all the corruption in Congress, with Pelosi leading the push for setting tough new ethics policies. Subtext: Is that why the GOP is so afraid of Nancy Pelosi?

  • Fear is all that the repugs have left to run on so if they paint Pelosi as a screaming liberal it may get some of their wackos out to vote but it won’t work because we already know what kind of leadership the GOP has and Americans are tired of it.

    I posted here once before that winning in 2006 is only a benifit to us if the dems go back to DC and govern. Investigations are fine as long as they are fact finding and not political. So if dems like the majority then we need to govern not assinate.

  • For Right Wingers, the main problem with Pelosi is that she strong and outspoken,and therefore, not a paragon of Christian virtue. Plus, she hails from Sodom and Gomorrah (SF), and that can’t be good.
    She is principled, she sticks to her guns, and she does it with with tact and style. I have to say, she rocks.

  • House Democrats plot to establish a Department of Peace.

    O gods, not peace! Mr. Blunt Object knows that what Americans really want is at least another half-decade of deadly, expensive blundering.

    Crap like that makes me think the Republicans really don’t want to win. Why else would he make such a positive comment about Pelosi? Frankly, I think they’re trying to get out of the “Infinite Power,” deal they struck with the Lord of the Flies. If they can lose the majority in both houses they’ll get their shriveled little souls back. If not Dick “Dick” Cheney will feast upon their flesh for eternity.

    As for Pelosi’s mannerisms, you know what? So what. I’m sick of politics as a beauty contest where people (male and female) are judged on poise rather than their ability to form a coherent sentence. I’m really sick of the bastards who twang to give the appearance they’re plain old folks, just like me. (Yes this includes Mr. Gore, even though he’s the best president we never had.) I wouldn’t want someone just like me in high office and neither would any one else. At any rate, I’d rather have a stiff but sincere and honest person in high office than some shuck and jive glad handing snake oil salesman. Or in the current case, a brainless gelatinous tower of lard that couldn’t find his big fat arse with the help of a dozen pages and a GPS. Give ’em Hell Pelosi!

  • It’s a sick country we live in when one party attacks another party for wanting peace, and the other party has to deny it.

  • People should not underestimate Nancy Pelosi; she’s no dumbell and she is no screaming liberal extremist. She is one smart lady and the republi-thugs should be very afraid of her leadership. She has no whacky left wing “agenda” but she will work for justice. It’s about time the people had someone on their side. If we do win the house, we have to give quite a bit of credit to Nancy Pelosi. The very fact that the righties are attacking her so vigorously means they percieve her as a big threat to their power and influence. They are right; she is a big threat.

  • I agree with David Visser that Pelosi is better than the current leadership. (Actually, Curly Larry and Moe would be better than the current leadership, but Pelosi really is a good one.)

    But I also go along with Jim. Not too much time in investigations. It is more important to get the country going in the right direction than to demonstrate that it was going wrong. And WHATEVER she does, do not start an impeachment probe. Yes, Bush deserves it, and possibly he might do something that would force one. But if one starts out right away, every republican would claim that it was ‘just payback for the Clinton impeachment’ and the water would be so muddied that the real evils that Bush had done would be ignored as the Democrats fought off that charge.

  • I used to work for Phil Burton in San Francisco. A strange combination of idealism, progressivism, and brutal competitiveness, Phiil started the “Burton Machine” which ran San Francisco for half a century. Willie Brown was a product of the machine, so was Nancy Pelosi. Anyone who thinks she’s a pushover, or doesn’t understand how to play hardball, is in for an education after November 7.

  • A Department of Peace ? I know it was intended as a slam, but is it really such a bad idea? It certainly would be a rational and sensible change from the policy of the warmongering Quick Draw MaGraw and his outlaw gang in the white house.

  • What the Republicans fail to realize is that “San Francisco Liberal” doesn’t mean what they think it means, i.e., latte-sipping, effete lefty intellectuals with no guts or backbone. The truth is – as I knew it 30 years ago when Nancy Pelosi was getting her introduction to things as I recall her then – that in San Francisco, politics really is a “blood sport” despite its seeming civilized behavior, and anyone who got to where Pelosi is (just as with Feinstein) got there by being just as tough and ready to jab elbows and give a swift kick between the legs as any man. She may be nice, polite and civilized, but I would cross Newtie ten times before I’d cross Pelosi, and then I wouldn’t do it. Politics in San Francisco is serious enough that people have been assassinated for it.

    It’s why Feinstein and Boxer keep handing Republicans their heads on platters every election. Only the strong survive in Bay Area politics.

    I for one look forward to the moment when Speaker Pelosi hands the first Republican moron his head on a platter while he’s saying “knife? knife? I don’t see any knife, do you? Nobody’s got any knives here!” And she’ll do it with a nice smile, too.

    Life’s going to be fun next year. Heigh ho! Heigh ho! It’s off to work we go! The only good Republicans will be pushing up daisies.

  • Actually, I’d bet good money that the first one she eviscerates will be Patrick McHenry, the thug most deserving of a good blood-letting. Just as a warning to the rest of the survivors.

  • The only way to hold George Bush and his gang at the WH accountable for the past 6 years of rot is to divide our government. Vote early and often for the Democratic candidate in your district. A change in management in our legislative branch will mean a change for the better for us common Americans. As the thuggery of Republican campaign rhetoric becomes louder and louder in their desparate last minute attempts to hold on to the seat of power, don’t be fooled. The person who would resort to projecting negativity upon a rival is a person not worthy of a positive response.

    Vote the Rascals Out in ’06 and ’08! -Kevo

    • Comments are closed.