E. J. Dionne: The Real Pelosi

[question everything]

washingtonpost.com

The Real Pelosi

By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Thursday, April 9, 2009; A17

"I give Republicans credit for this: They vote the way they believe. . . . I think that they vote with more integrity than they get credit for." That review of Republican motivations and commitments comes not courtesy of a partisan blog but from Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House. During an interview at the Capitol shortly after Congress broke for its recess, Pelosi spoke a simple truth too often ignored in the tiresome laments about the loss of bipartisanship in Washington. "If you can't find common ground, that doesn't mean you're partisan," she said. "It just means you believe two different things."

The congressional break comes at a moment when one cliche about Pelosi -- that she was a San Francisco liberal imposing her agenda on our pragmatic new president -- should be disposed of for good. How many times earlier this year did you hear a variation on "Obama let Pelosi write the stimulus"? As Pelosi noted, "Anybody who knows Barack Obama knows that he's going to have the recovery package that he wants." Republicans seem to have realized that this argument wasn't working, so they have taken to criticizing President Obama directly. Recent polls suggest this strategy isn't helping the GOP much, either.

(snip)

In the Congress elected in 1960, there were 174 Republicans. Only seven came from the 11 states of the Old Confederacy, while 35 came from New York or New England, the heartlands of moderate Republicanism. In the current Congress, 72 of the 178 Republicans come from the Old Confederacy. Almost all of them are deeply conservative. There is not a single Republican House member from New England, and there are only three from New York. Yet Pelosi knows that her own majority still depends on members elected from relatively conservative rural and suburban districts. Of the 254 House Democrats -- it takes 218 to form a majority -- 49 come from districts John McCain carried last year, according to a Congressional Quarterly analysis. Pelosi wants to protect those 49. The best evidence for how she is executing her balancing act came in the House budget resolution that left open the possibility that health-care reform, but not a cap-and-trade plan on carbon emissions, would pass under "reconciliation" rules.

(snip)

On the other hand, Pelosi knows that energy issues do not divide neatly along partisan lines. Regional differences, notably among coal states, oil-and-gas states and the rest of the country, often count more than party. "There are enough Democrats who are for health-care reform," she said. "You don't know where those Democratic votes are on cap-and-trade." Her view is that unless both houses can forge a broad compromise that will get at least 60 votes in the Senate, the whole effort will die anyway.

(snip)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/08/AR2009040803235.html

[Demeter]

1. It's a Twofer Rehab Job--Pelosi and the GOP

and it fails on both accounts. Some things are simply unforgivable: lack of impeachment, war, habeus corpus, torture, FISA, Patriot Acts, bailouts for bankers, denial of universal health care, more war, warrantless wiretapping, the list is getting too long for me to keep it all in my limited organic memory.