I know, I know, I just had dinner with Howard Dean--well, accidentally, I also just had lamb chops with Nancy Pelosi. Can I tell you that I'm more in love with Dean and the DNC, and more disgusted with Pelosi than I'd ever thought possible?
Here's the thing--Pelosi turned up here to work the crowd and I went with my mother, who is a big donor. We had a hard time reading the crowd or really figuring out what this was all about. It turned out to mostly be local pols--and I mean local--all the way down to the state senate level. And it was very much a boilerplate kind of event. Everyone got introduced and noticed (it was a bit romper room "and I see bobby, and tommy, and teddy...)and two congressional candidates from New Hampshire spoke. Then Nancy got up, in a white Pants Suit and graciously rallied the crowd.
I can't remember any particular thing she said, because it was so utterly unmemorable. She told us that she wouldn't repeat all the awful things Bush had done, because we already knew all that, then she gave us a quickie reprise of how bad things were. She predicted and hoped we'd take back the house, she lauded our candidates, she held out her six point program and said that it would go over well. Etc..Etc...Etc... She even mentioned foreign policy and how our stature had been squandered and how the world was going to hell in a handbasket because we didn't even use our diplomatic corps or clout to get things done. So far, so good. But I left feeling really angry, and sad. Unlike Dean she was not trying to convince us of anything--she assumed we were all on board with the program. Unlike Dean she didn't take any questions. And unlike Dean she, well, she just isn't that smart--or else, as has been said by someone about Bush, she doesn't think you are that smart.
Pelosi and Reid are unveiling a six point plan that proposes "quick action" on things that are important to the country. In "100 hours" they will start to "make america safer" by implementing the 9/11 comission's recommendations, they will do this or that, they will start right in. It isn't necessary to impeach bush she told us (and remember, no questions means this didn't come from the audience, its part of her stock speech) because they can "stop bush" once they get into majority status. They are planning to "Restore civility" to congress. How nice. They are planning to protect social security and working people, how nice. But of course they could have done all these things--if only in dumb show--but they chose not to when they were in the minority. They not only didn't stop the bankruptcy bill--they voted for it. They not only didn't stop the medicare rape--they voted for it. They not only didn't stop alito et al on the supreme court,they didn't filibuster.
Nancy talked as though the whole country knows, or should know, what the democrats stand for or, at the best, that just trumpeting "we'll do better" will be enough. she said, as people keep saying "if the election were held tomorrow we would win by X number of points." Well, I beg to differ. Not only does it not matter what the polls say about "tomorrow's" election, but it won't matter several weeks from now if this is her attitude towards what needs to be done.
I wanted to say these things to her but there simply wasn't the place. She was in and out of there before you could do more than shake her hand (though my mother valiantly tried.). I wanted to say this:
"You can't ask the people to elect you because you will do things differently from the republicans without going all the way through a bill of particulars. Without, in effect, indicting bush, cheney, and the republican congress for all that they have done wrong. Once you've done that--once you've exposed them--you can't proclaim loudly that you are going to let bygones be bygones and not hold them legally accountable for their very real crimes. Because the crimes--and they are crimes, and you have admitted they are crimes--weren't committed against the democratic party, or against particular congresspeople, but against the constitution and the people as a whole. It isn't for the democrats to "restore civility" in congress--no one cares about that and the offence isn't against the people but against custom and decorum. The people are going to want to be avenged. And if they don't want to be avenged, they aren't going to vote for you in the first place. And if they vote for you as an avenger, they are going to be deeply, deeply dissapointed and dissaffected when you tell them that in the interests of comity and bipartisanship, and what have you you've decided not to hold hearings and not to impeach bush.
I foresee that the dems could take back congress (barely) but I also see that they won't have the foresight to do what needs to be done to lay the groundwork for a democratic sucessor to Bush. Because they still don't know how to play hardball and they are not willing to take on the republican brand and destroy it. They think that will be "bad for the country." They think that it will be enough if they "stop bush" and make him a "lame duck." Well, he's already a lame duck--and there's plenty more he can screw before he goes whether he has congress in his pocket or not.
The last thing I'm going to say is this: Pelosi comes across as a smart, organized, articulate person who is utterly sincerely plastic. She's got her thing, her speech, her courtesy, her organization down pat and she doesn't deviate from it. That's in the nature of politics. She noticed everyone in the room who needed to be noticed, she was sincerely gracious and behind each of her candidates, she clearly would try never to forget a young politician and would go out of her way to help them. But she's no barn burner. She's a functionary.
aimai