Nancy Pelosi doesn’t come around here very much anymore. In fact, its been almost 7 years since she last graced the pages of Daily Kos. But she did come around here once in a while, publishing diaries such as this one in 2006, Fighting the Republican Culture of Corruption, in which Ms. Pelosi made promises such as this:
Until we have a Democratic majority in Congress we can not ensure that the Constitution will be upheld or that the voices of the American people will be heard over the special interest megaphones. But at each and every abuse of power, I will be fighting against the Republican culture of corruption.
And in 2012, when Democrats had a majority in the House, and she was Speaker again, she published House Democrats Will Make You Proud, a promise she made in victory, reminding us of how great she was in 2006:
When Democrats held the majority in 2006, we proved we were able to competently govern and work in a bipartisan manner to address important priorities for our nation.
Of course, the more interesting reading is in the link Speaker Pelosi cites in the quote above. Let me give you a few highlights from the op-ed she linked to and authored in 2012:
No matter who occupied the Oval Office, Democrats in Congress knew we could not let partisan differences stand in the way of doing the work of the American people.
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Though we never compromised principles, we did seek common ground to achieve results.
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The record is clear: The source of congressional inaction today is a Republican congressional leadership that cannot, or will not, govern...
Nancy Pelosi makes bold claims in her writings — she always does.
And I won’t deny she is a brilliant legislator. Nor can I say she isn’t a great statesman, able to build political coalitions like no other.
The problem is, America doesn’t need a brilliant legislator, or even a great statesman, leading us at this moment.
America needs a fighter, a bare knuckle brawler, who is fearless in resolve, and willing to take the political punishment IMPEACHMENT will entail.
Clearly, this is not, and cannot be, Nancy Pelosi, who, to my eye, cowers at the prospect. As the cartoon above deftly shows, the Speaker has so much more power than Trump, in this fight. And yet she remains defensively against the ropes, not taking any real punishment, but neither doling it out.
The Constitution warns of a President like Trump. The Constitution also tells us how to fight a President like Trump. And fighting Trump with the Constitution at our back, does not involve nonsensical, utterly pointless, and I’m sorry, but incredibly STUPID, strategies like this:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday that despite reports President Donald Trump may have attempted to have Ukraine interfere in the 2020 presidential election, she still does not support impeachment proceedings. Instead, she suggested that laws ought to be passed to make clear when and how a sitting president could be indicted once Trump is no longer in office.
Sure, that’ll work...someday...
Back in 2003, those of us old enough to remember, can tell you how it felt to watch the Bush administration slowly tear at the fabric of our democracy, and our republic, with claws of corruption, greed, ineptitude, and what I can still only think of as outright evil.
Yet, in 2003, Democrats were supremely confident that America had seen the disaster Bush’s presidency had been for our country, and would vote him out. Impeachment was bandied about quite a bit then, too, but Democrats refused to even consider it, basically saying that with the Clinton impeachment still fresh, impeaching Bush would look like political payback.
And then the 2004 election happened. And everyone was shocked. LOL, The Daily Mirror’s headline the day after the election was, “How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?”
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So here we sit in 2019, with a President so far beyond worse than George W., it staggers the mind.
And here we sit, hearing the same type of fearful excuses, the same promise of accountability...from the same person, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi...accompanied by the same paralyzed inaction.
Others have said it, so allow me to add my voice to the growing choir.
Nancy, either impeach this lawless President, or step aside and let someone else lead.
Now is the time of the stomach — not the head, and not the heart.
Now is not the time to protect a future that is more at risk from inaction, than it can possibly be from acting on the CONSTITUTIONAL REMEDY our founders provided FOR THIS VERY DAY.
George W. didn’t have foreign governments helping him to win in 2004...so without impeachment, what chance do you believe we actually have of preserving our democracy, our Constitution, and our nation? In 2003, we thought we had it in the bag…
What is your grand strategy, Madam Speaker, if Trump pulls a foreign-assisted W., and wins in 2020? What do we do then? Listen to how you’ll “work across the isle” while our country is sliced up into pieces small enough to fit into Trump’s pockets?
And if you don’t impeach, Ms. Pelosi, then how are you abusing the Constitution any less than our butter-haired President? Just because he does it out of greed, and you do it out of apparent cowardice, doesn’t make it any less a sin, in my book...