If I had to pick the top gun in Washington today it would be, hands down, Nancy Pelosi.
By every metric, House Speaker Pelosi is the keystone of the Biden Administration. Not only does she have the president’s legislative back, she is the narrator-in-chief for Democratic Party rule in the national media. Not bad for an 82-year old lady from the old neighborhood in Baltimore.
This week’s launch of the House Select Committee on January 6th as a primetime TV extravaganza is as much a Pelosi production as James Goldston’s. The former ABC News executive was hired by Pelosi to add pizazz to what some are calling Donald Trump’s ‘third impeachment’. (Pelosi also produced the first two impeachments.) If you recall, Pelosi hammed it up during President Trump’s 2020 State of the Union by shredding Trump speech behind his back while on camera. There is also that famous photo of Pelosi standing and wagging her finger at a seated Trump during a White House meeting. Pelosi never hides her contempt and hatred for what Hillary Clinton called an “illegitimate president”.
I was among those who proudly trumpeted Pelosi’s rise to power as the first woman Speaker of the House in 2007. In fact, the cover of The Italic Way magazine in 2008 (issue XXXIV) featured her. But, we knew then that her affinity to our community was tenuous. She was a fervent supporter of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. During the 2020 street riots, she refused to condemn the mob toppling of the Columbus statue in Baltimore, dismissing it with “people will do what they do”.
We expected more of an all-Italian woman, born Nancy D’Alesandro and married to an Italian husband Paul Pelosi. But I guess her Catholic Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone also expected more concerning her pro-abortion agenda – he recently banned her from communion. This is the woman who claimed she prayed for Donald Trump’s awakening. No, Nancy marches to a different drummer.
Her view of America has become half the nation’s view, by force of her personality and a compliant media. The Select Committee on January 6th was fully choreographed by Pelosi. She broke House tradition by refusing to seat members chosen by the Republican minority leader. She forbade the committee from calling her to testify, or DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, or the Capitol Police Chief, or the House Sergeant-at-Arms – all responsible for Capital security on January 6th.
The corporate media has yet to question these Pelosi prohibitions, even though the purpose of the Committee is to prevent future breaches of the Capital. The Committee was informed (behind closed doors) by Trump aides that the president authorized on January 4th up to 20,000 National Guard troops to protect the Capitol – even General Milley supposedly knows this but we haven’t heard his testimony about January 4th. Will the TV public hearings reveal that testimony to the American public? Mayor Bowser actually rejected the troops in writing – will that document be verified? Was Pelosi informed of the offer or that the Capitol was at risk? The Committee would have to conclude that whether January 6th was planned or incited by Donald Trump, the Capitol breach would not have happened with 20,000 troops in place. Knowing that, if you were Pelosi would you want to be called to testify under oath?
During the 2020 street riots provoked by the murder of George Floyd, Pelosi condemned President Trump’s offer of National Guard troops to various besieged mayors labelling them “storm troopers.” That same mindset may have obsessed her before January 6th, fearing ‘the optics’ of such a military presence, as one researcher suggested. Yet, she demanded full military protection after the Capitol breach for Biden’s Inauguration and weeks afterward – damn the optics!
As before the Capitol breach, Pelosi has shown little concern for the protection of Supreme Court (conservative) justices and their families. She is delaying a House bill for such protection, even after the Senate passed it unanimously in May. As feared, a would-be assassin attempted to enter the home of Justice Kavanaugh last week. As expected, both Pelosi and the NYTimes dismissed the frightening news that might have altered the Court and society – Pelosi merely saying “no one was harmed,” and the NYTimes burying the story on page 20. (Today, Ross Douthat of the NYTimes called out his own paper for such bias.)
Bobbing and weaving, Top Gun Nancy eludes all opponents. -JLM
“No one was harmed” says it all, as if the only possible harm is physical. The psychological harm being inflicted on the Justices and their families is worse — a persistent foreboding and dread of physical harm from angry ideologues. She is truly a “say anything” person, a political hack whose partisanship knows no limits, and no bounds.
I’m surprised you didn’t know her Italic roots would be a source of embarrassment instead of pride from the jump.
True! There is always a 50-50 chance of that in our experience.
Nancy Pelosi is an embarrassment as an American citizen, Catholic and a person of Italian descent. God is her final judge but her record is not one I would want to present to God!
What puzzles me about her distance from Italian-Americans is the fact that her Italian family experienced first hand discrimination and bias in Baltimore. Her father was accused of having mob ties and subject to FBI surveillance. Her brother was accused of perjury in a rape trial (later acquitted). I guess she is not allowed to play the identity politics card for Italians. it would not fit the narrative.
Or she prefers not to be identified with the malignant trope of organized crime since, incredibly, in addition to the perjury charge, her brother was the only one of 16 indicted co-defendants to be acquitted of the gang rape charges. Her father was mayor during both trials in the city court. That probably doesn’t fit a “justice for all” narrative, or the “believe all women” mantra of recent vintage.