So she's really an abashed leftist. A misunderstood moderate. I'm glad they cleared that up.
Posted on 11/10/2002 5:01:36 AM PST by Liz
WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 — Nancy Pelosi smiles so often, and so blindingly, that she sometimes leaves the impression she has few other emotional expressions. It is an illusion, of course, and one she has used to great effect in becoming the highest-ranking woman in Congressional history.
She smiled last month when she stood up, alone among the House Democratic leadership, and voted against the resolution authorizing President Bush to use military force in Iraq. She smiled as she bitterly jousted with the House majority leader, Dick Armey, in July, ultimately voting against the Homeland Security Department bill that Mr. Armey and the other Republicans pushed through.
She positively beamed on Friday in San Francisco, her hometown, when she announced that she had amassed enough votes to best two male rivals and become the House Democratic leader next week, a summit never before achieved by a woman. Her glee seemed undiminished as she flicked a sharp barb toward Harold E. Ford Jr., a 32-year-old Tennessee congressman who is also seeking the post and who earlier suggested that at 62, Ms. Pelosi represents the past.
"Well, I've been in office eight months," she said, laughing, referring to her service as minority whip. "I guess when you're very young, eight months seems like a long time."
The ability to make merry while reaching for the jugular is an essential characteristic for politicians, and friends say Ms. Pelosi learned it from one of the classic political bosses and characters of an earlier era, Thomas J. D'Alesandro Jr., a congressman, mayor of Baltimore and doler of favors for northeastern Maryland for 40 years.
Known for his straw hats and jokes, Mr. D'Alesandro tempered his New Deal populism with a pragmatic and occasionally ruthless understanding of how to get things done. One of his sons was also a Baltimore mayor in the 1960's, and his daughter changed her name from Nancy D'Alesandro when she married Paul F. Pelosi in 1963, having inherited an enthusiasm for the two-way streets of politics that she never shook off.
"She has always said to me that she learned something important from her father," said Art Torres, chairman of the California Democratic Party, a post Ms. Pelosi held 20 years ago. "No matter how much you disagree with someone, always keep the friendship in your voice. She knows how to be persuasive, and today she showed she could do it better than some of the guys."
Now, if she is chosen to lead her battered party, she will have to keep smiling through two more years of minority status in the House.
Too polite to criticize Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, who is stepping down as leader after eight years, she talked Friday about the need to "build on" his record. But she will have to do that construction work from a position considerably to the left of the more centrist Mr. Gephardt. Her critics within the Democratic Party have suggested that she is not mainstream enough to rebuild the party among swing voters, and Republicans publicly lamented her ideology while privately delighting in what they considered an easy target.
"Didn't the Democrats learn anything from the election?" asked Deborah Pryce of Ohio, who as deputy majority whip is the highest-ranking Republican woman in the House. "I think the American people want results, not roadblocks, and Nancy is a roadblock, that's her hallmark. She's a liberal in the true sense of the word."
Ms. Pelosi has disagreed with the Bush administration on its tax cuts, its welfare and health insurance policies and its military goals. But her friends say that the liberal label is too simplistic. She has also joined conservative lawmakers in demanding stronger human rights in China, angering the Communist government there in 1991 by raising a protest banner in Tiananmen Square.
"I have to laugh when people pigeonhole her as a liberal," said Senator Barbara Boxer of California, an old friend who is usually similarly categorized. "What she really is, is a unifier. She is going to find issues, pocketbook issues, health issues, that everyone in the party can rally around. Her goal has always been consensus, not ideology."
Ms. Pelosi said on Friday that her colleagues did not choose her as their leader because she is an outspoken liberal, but she neglected to mention one of the reasons they did lend their support: her enthusiasm, as expressed in vigorous fund-raising, for their campaigns. She raised more than $7 million during this last election cycle, traveling to more than 30 states to campaign for Democrats and encouraging many freshman candidates over the years.
Many of those recipients can be expected to repay part of their debt during the leadership vote on Thursday.
She is unquestionably her father's daughter when it comes to her joy in piling up political capital and, as in recent days, spending it to move up the ladder. Two weeks ago, campaign finance watchdogs said she was skirting the election laws by having two political action committees acting independently, and her office was sheepishly forced to shut down one of the PAC's.
For all the criticism about her unabashed leftism, however, she was oddly muted on Friday when it came to outlining bold, non-Republican policy goals — perhaps an indication of the pragmatism that lies ahead.
Last year she said the Bush administration was taking tax cuts "to a new level of recklessness and irresponsibility," but on Friday she talked more about common ground and respecting the views of others. Economic proposals, she said, should be evaluated by a basic test: "Do they grow the economy?" The test sounded remarkably centrist in tone, and there was no mention of fairness or economic justice.
"Perhaps in his next proposal, there will be something that we can work together on," she said, suddenly sounding more Baltimore than San Francisco in referring to the tax cut plans that President Bush has promised. "I don't think we should outlaw that as a possibility. But I do think that we should have something to say that is positive and not just oppose what the president has to say."
Hmmm...the writer misspelled "snarls".
The day after the election in 2004: Bush gets 80% of the vote, 310 republicans in the house, 68 republican senators, 41 republican governors....
So she's really an abashed leftist. A misunderstood moderate. I'm glad they cleared that up.
I can't wait to see this chesire cat grinning like an idiot as she sits next to John Edwards while he blinks his eyes 90 miles an hour.
Like the Clinton's, these people are more like cartoon characters than real people.
Now if she could get $7 billion, and hand it over to the American public, she would be doing something!
Spoken like a true whore without any attempt to respect one's fellow man as either an equal or from a position of seniority to afford accountable, responsible leadership. She isn't responsible enough to be a junior high school cheerleader.
And, that is exactly why she should be Democrat Minority Leader. Frankly, I can't think of a better choice. (for the 'Pubbies that is)
And of course everyone knows that Boxer isn't an extreme (and extremely dim) left wing wacko. I have to laugh (and maybe cringe) whenever Boxer makes a value judgement.
While the father was Mayor, rape charges against the son were squashed. While the son was Mayor, corruption charges against both him and Councilman Mimi DiPietro were squashed when the prime witness mysteriously disappeared. The witness did not resurface until after the charges were dismissed. He was staying in a mobbed-up Las Vegas Casino at the time.
The D'Alesandros ruled Baltimore with an iron fist, including the judges and the prosecutors. The real truth about Nancy D'Alestandro is she favors Democrats uber alles. She is a no-holds-barred, bare-knuckle, street politician, devoid of ethics. I was ahead of the lamestream media in going into this aspect of Pelosi in my column this week, "This Just In: Bush Defeats Clinton."
Click below or visit the thread of the same name on FR.
Congressman Billybob
Are you sure it's not rictus? My gosh, she's got a grinning, evil 'Death's Head'!
Great... now we'll be stuck with "House Minority Leader Nancy Totenkopf".
I'll probably be flamed for this. So be it. Pelosi's much more than just another pretty facelift. I think it's as dangerous for Republicans to underestimate the Hitlery/Pelosi/Feminist alliance as it was for the Rats to underestimate Dubya.
Haven't you noticed? Hitlery doesn't do interviews or talking head shows. But Nancy will -- with a vengeance -- and the media will fawn all over her as she presents the Hard Left agenda in terms the Soccer Moms will understand and vote for. She will be idolized as much as Newt was demonized.
After years of Pelosi-watching I can say she's as tough and cold-blooded as it's possible to be. That rictus of a smile would be fixed on her face no matter whether greeting a colleague or watching an abortionist butcher a baby. She's the sort of Waffen SS type Hitlery requires in her attempt to bring off a putsch.
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