“Tom DeLay In A Liberal Skirt”
Debra Saunder's description of Nancy Pelosi, posted over at Real Clear Politics. Her column examines Pelosi's record and what a future with her as speaker looks like.
SAN FRANCISCO — It is a sign of how out-of-touch San Francisco is from the rest of the country when most voters here consider House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi a moderate. No, make that: too moderate.
Pelosi's positions are those of a classic liberal. She voted against the welfare-reform bill signed by President Bill Clinton and supports same-sex marriage. She wants choice for children who don't want to notify their parents to have an abortion, but not for poor District of Columbia parents who need vouchers to send their children to private school. Pelosi voted against the war in Iraq and the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Her 2005 liberal rating by Americans for Democratic Action was 95 percent.
She is happy to dismiss President Bush as an idiot — or, as she said in 2004, Bush "has no judgment, no experience or knowledge of the subjects that he has decided upon." From the other side of her mouth, she promises to restore "civility" to the House if she becomes its first female speaker.
It's worth taking the time to read. Saunders makes a number of good points. If she reins in the worst of the excesses of some party chairmen, it will only be with an eye to 2008. But each year she remained speaker would see a leftward drift in her stance. That's probably a good assessment.
By mokus, Sunday, 5 November , 2006 @ 3:01 pm
Saunders is usually on target, but this time she’s wide of the mark. Anyone, and I mean anyone, who thinks Nancy Pilosi’s got the slightest chance of keeping John Conyers from doing whatever he wants to do doesn’t know John Conyers.
On his own, Conyers is more than a match for Pilosi, but with the Black Caucus behind him, Conyers will have a free hand, restrained only by his own peculiar conception of proprieties.
Make no mistake, Pilosi can nag at him like some comic shrew, but that’s about the extent of any influence she might have. Conyers will do exactly what he wants to do and Pilosi can like it, or lump it. To Conyers it’s just background noise, and he doesn’t really much care one way or the other what the silly twit from San Francisco has to say.