Thank goodness for Gail Collins, for some positive news after a week when so many opinionistas did their best to convince us the whole profession should be banned as toxic to the general welfare. She proclaims “The Age of Nancy”:
… The Republicans have turned Pelosi into the Demon Grandmother — in ads, a satanic figure in the flames of deficit spending, or a 50-foot monster smashing houses with her big-government feet…
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But even the public that likes the legislation she’s been churning out tends to underestimate her.
[…] __
Pelosi has actually been very good on ethics. Under her watch in the House, earmarks are fewer and more transparent. Travel rules are tighter. She fought for the creation of a new in-house watchdog, the Office of Congressional Ethics, pushing it over the wire by one vote. Since then, the aggressive ethics office has won the rancor of investigated members of Congress and the hearts of good-government groups.
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“She bit the bullet,” said Sarah Dufendach, the vice president for legislative affairs at Common Cause. “That was a very heavy lift, to get the House to do that. I give her really high marks for that.”
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Of all the good deeds for which people get punished in Washington, pushing ethics has to be at the top of the list. Your own members resent it, and the public doesn’t really give you any credit. It’s not likely that people will go to the polls in November and vote Democratic because the House, although still deeply, deeply imperfect, is run with a higher ethical standard than it was before Pelosi got control.
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She has been around a long time and must have known that from the start. But she pushed anyway. Pelosi is an idealist working in the practical now. She genuinely sees her party as a vehicle for good and her pragmatism is not the least bit cynical. She is the most powerful woman in the country, the most fearless person on Capitol Hill and on track to be one of the most productive speakers in history.
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I don’t know about you, but that kind of knocks me out.
Me too, Ms. Collins… me, too!
Daddy-O
I had the good or mis-fortune, take your pick, to GET PAID TO play music for a GOP fundraiser a week ago or so (They didn’t ask me my political affiliation, and I certainly didn’t volunteer it; just cashed the check instead). Roy Blunt gave the main address to the crowd.
He did not fail to trash Nancy Pelosi and San Francisco, and the crowd, like bleating sheep, applauded that incredibly old line.
Fuck ’em. They have no idea how stupid they sound.
fucen tarmal
a significant portion of the country will never believe anything positive about nancy pelosi. the right wing attacks are easy, lazy, and they give what people want to believe about all politicians a reacharound. fortunately about 434/435ths of them have no say in the matter.
Cacti
I imagine Nancy probably takes some Ty Cobb-like pleasure in being “teh evil San Francisco
queerliberal” to all the knuckle-draggers.kdaug
@Daddy-O: And I’d wager that some 2/3rds of said bleaters couldn’t tell you what Nancy Pelosi’s job title is, what her responsibilities are, or what she’s done.
To put it diplomatically: these mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging fucking neanderthals should {ahem} set themselves on fire.
Spaghetti Lee
The wingnuts seem to have a special hate for Pelosi, beyond the garden-variety hate that they apply to everything in the world. I think it’s not merely because she’s a woman, but the idea of a woman who’s strong enough to boss people around and get shit done is terrifying to them. Who among their women does that? Palin? Bachmann? Don’t make me larf.
fucen tarmal
@Daddy-O:
lol there are some stories i could tell about one of roy’s daughters and her daddy issues. his family values are strictly for public consumption only. there isn’t much going on in san francisco that she hadn’t tried by the time she went away to college.
Spaghetti Lee
@Daddy-O:
Sounds like you missed an opportunity to play Borat to their rodeo crowd, i.e.: “Obama says he wants more democracy! Is that what we want?” “HELL NO!”
chopper
i’m not so idealistic as to actually believe this, but i like pelosi nonetheless. she’s smart, she’s shrewd, she gets shit done. and most of all, she makes the goopers spit in rage and shit themselves out of spite and i gotta love and respect anyone what does that. the fact that she’s a vagina-american is just icing on the cake.
female speaker + black prez == ‘GOP angry, GOP smash foot in rage!’
Cacti
@chopper:
San Francisco female speaker + Secret muslim black prez pass healthcare reform == how long before next McVeigh?
Davis X. Machina
In sensible shoes. Don’t forget the sensible shoes.
chopper
@fucen tarmal:
lol, my old roommate and best friend was hastert’s kid. not the one that tried to run for the house, the full-on ‘black sheep’ of the family. you know every gooper family has em.
that dude was nuts. seriously, seriously nuts. for a while it was pretty fun cause every day was like a crazy sitcom situation (the time we were all drunk in DC and he got literally dragged around the corner by a cab, his body all sticking out the driver’s window, or the time he shot at me in the kitchen over a sink full of dishes comes to mind). after a while i grew up and realized that my life was worth living and moved out.
Gracchus Babeuf
I liked this article, and I really like Pelosi (she’s what progressives want Obama to be), but this sentence rubbed me the wrong way:
That’s an awfully nice way to say that poor and middle-class women won’t be able to get abortions in a few years.
PTirebiter
Maybe I’ve missed some stuff, but it seems like the village scribes are unfailingly respectful of her skills. I assume that means they’re afraid of her.
LD50
You know who else was an idealist? Hitler.
Gracchus Babeuf
@Davis X. Machina:
Couldn’t help but think of this.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@chopper:
This.
Mark my words, in 30 years, Congressional historians will be saying how she was one of the most effective Speakers ever.
When compared to Harry Reid…well, there is no comparison. Oops, that sounds like I’m damning her with faint praise. When she didn’t have an effective majority under the last two years of the Cheney Administration, she stonewalled with the best of em. With an effective majority under Obama’s first two years, she’s showing how to legislate.
We are very fortunate to have her working with Obama. Note I left out Reid.
stuckinred
@chopper: This idiot Paul Braun’s kid got busted for herb last year. And this motherfucker wants to take Playboy’s out of the PX’s!
fucen tarmal
@chopper:
to put it in context i was in college when i knew her, she was a regular weekend visitor to our dorm group, her “host” wasn’t ever the same as i can recall, and how many visits do high school kids need to make, to a school they aren’t going to?
her and her friends could liven up a kegger though, the rest of the girls would get home somehow….
JMC in the ATL
I’ve liked since she came to national attention as whip. I still don’t understand the blinding hatred that many PUMAs had for her.
chopper
@fucen tarmal:
sorry dogg, but keggers aint shit compared to what i’ve seen.
opium, skinpopping crushed up pills, pushing crazy bitches down a flight of stairs, loaded guns…there was the time the dude shot himself up with an epipen he found in the back of a cab one night after a hardcore show.
those were called ‘weekdays’.
mr. whipple
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
In all fairness, Reid has a much tougher job.
Hiram Taine
@Davis X. Machina:
Of course you can’t forget the Sensible Shoes.
Tom Hilton
I am so fucking proud to have her as my Representative.
Spaghetti Lee
And I like Gail Collins too. She’s the only “common-sense”-styled pundit who, well, actually uses some common sense.
mogden
She has a quite unbearable speaking voice.
Tom Hilton
And tangentially, I confess that I teared up during Rachel Maddow’s recitation last night of the Obama administration’s accomplishments (not wholly off-topic, since much of it wouldn’t have been possible without Nancy). I’ve been annoyed at Rachel for some of her more over-the-top criticisms of the administration, but I give her credit for maintaining enough perspective to see what has been accomplished already.
Violet
NANCY SMASH! So glad to see this profile on her. She rocked during health care and is working just as hard on other things. She makes it her business to get stuff done. Love her!
gnomedad
@chopper:
Man, I feel stoopid not to have realized this. Another formula might be:
female speaker + black prez = white males just can’t get a break in
thistheir country anymore.Josh James
She’s done some wonderful things lately, however …
Impeachment should never be off the table, and to have it taken off the table when a President and VP so obviously broke the law (and on TV to this day bragging about it) does us all a disservice.
The Speaker (and everyone in Congress) took an oath to protect the Constitution … I cannot tell you how disappointing it is that after getting position in 2006, the Dems decided to let terrible crimes by office holders go by in the hopes of gaining more power in 08 … very disappointing.
IMHO, of course.
Malron
I’ve been a Nancy cheerleader even longer than I’ve been an
ObotObamacrat.General Egali Tarian Stuck
@mr. whipple: this is an important point. But as someone being a senate watcher for a number of years now, some pointed criticism of Reid and his tactics is warranted. I think most of it comes from his personality of being low key. A degree of this is necessary to keep some level of comity in order, but when the other side is obstructing much much more than is customary, it is time to take the gloves off.
Reid has done this more in recent months. But when he became Majority Leader in 2007, it was apparent then that the wingnuts were planning on agreeing to nothing, unless it was most of what they wanted. Record filibustering began immediately and Reid made a decision to deal with it by agreeing by mutual consent that every vote would be a 60 vote supermajority, and the wingnuts would not have to actually make cloture votes to be on the record of obstructing. Reid’s calculus for success was getting more legislation passed rather than more better legislation passed. And giving the wingers a means to institutionalize as normal the 60 vote supermajority. This was incredibly tone deaf politically and though that approach was rolled back mostly later, Reid let the 60 vote thing get into the publics and the presses CW as some kind of normal proceeding rather than what it was, wholesale obstruction by the minority on the majority. Abusing the principle of minority rights and only having a say, not the final say.
Corner Stone
@chopper:
Yeah. And?
Spaghetti Lee
@Tom Hilton:
Do you have a video of that? Sounds like a good thing to watch.
Corner Stone
I am totally about NANCY SMASH.
And I don’t give a damn who knows it.
Something Fabulous
While we are on the subject of NancySMASH, A deep thought from Feminist Hulk: DEEPLY ENTRENCHED PATRIARCHAL IDEOLOGIES HARD TO SMASH. THAT WHY HULK ALWAYS STRETCH FIRST.
http://twitter.com/feministhulk
Graeme
I had very low hopes for Pelosi, and I voted against her in ’08.
She’s got my vote henceforth. I am impressed.
kay
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Phase One is starting. HHS will have a website available (hopefully) by July 1st, where you can pick your state and see what you might qualify for: Medicaid, S-CHIP, Medicare, the ‘adult children’ provision, and (now) the high risk federal pools. I think people will (ultimately) end up using the site as a process of elimination-type deal, where if they are uninsured they will see what’s available and sort of slot themselves in. As more is available, more will get in.
I think implementation is going to be the whole deal, so this can be the test case. It’s only a half a million enrollment, projected, nation-wide. I have people who might be able to use it, now, today, so I’ll let you know how it functions.
El Cid
But… but… NANCY PELOSI! WENT! TO! SYRIA! Logan Act Logan Act! GRRRRR
RedKitten
I love this picture. She’s all large and in charge with her big-ass gavel, and her Thatchers a-swayin’, and ready to crack skulls.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@kay:
Okee dokee :)
Tom Hilton
@Spaghetti Lee: Video here. Good perspective to hang onto when things start looking bleak for (energy bill, immigration reform, closing Guantanamo, etc.).
kay
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
There’s this group of women, late middle aged, divorced or never-married, who lost their jobs and can’t get new (comparable) ones, and who have preexisting conditions, and managed to hang onto some assets, a house or a retirement account, so aren’t “poor”. I don’t think they’re going back to the pay rate they left, because employers are just going to hire new graduates. They know this. This plan better work, Stuck :)
Corner Stone
@RedKitten:
I am honestly a little…iffy, asking you what this means.
fucen tarmal
@chopper:
not that this needs to be a competitive slam session or anything, but the term “fucked without a kiss” ever know a girl to find herself disposed in such a manner, and to keep going back for more, amongst other concurrent paramours? also to confirm that she indeed have sex with a guy who was bragging to his group, about fucking her without wanting to kiss her? and her being more than ok with it.
but if you feel a need to top any story be my guest. i thought i had been clear enough as to the nature
Chris G.
Nancy Pelosi is my second-favorite Italian grandmother.
chopper
@fucen tarmal:
we were in a band called “abortion milkshake”.
RedKitten
@Corner Stone: Definition of Thatchers.
Don’t worry, it’s safe for work.
Corner Stone
@RedKitten: Yeah, that’s why I wasn’t sure I wanted to ask.
asiangrrlMN
@Tom Hilton: I loved that vid. I was with you on the frustration, and I really appreciated her summing it up.
@fucen tarmal: That’s just really unbearably sad.
Nancy SMASH! is who I want to be when I grow up–minus the pastels. I don’t do pastels.
Allison W.
@Gracchus Babeuf:
HCR didn’t make abortions illegal.
Allison W.
@Tom Hilton:
Rachel may have her over the top criticisms, but I still respect her because she gives him credit when its due. It’s a balance that has become extremely rare on the Left. I still want to bop her for that do over of Obama’s speech though.
Joey Maloney
@Allison W.:
I don’t. I think it was right on (operating with the info we all had at the time, before the $20b escrow fund was announced). And it was a way for us all to vent our frustration that Obama is not the benevolent dictator that some of us daydream about him being from time to time.
fucen tarmal
@asiangrrlMN:
i agree, its what i think about when i see the families of the “family values” crowd. the kids pay a hell of a price for all that public morality, and rebel hard. of course, nowadays she lawyers it up on behalf of the tobacco industry. so…
asiangrrlMN
@fucen tarmal: Well, then, fuck her! Oh, wait….
@Joey Maloney: I enjoyed Rachel’s speech, but even as she gave it, I knew it was fantasyland. No way in hell Obama could have given that speech. So, I’m half-a-dozen of one and six of the other.