Nancy Pelosi is EVIL!

Dec 4, 2006
By Phoenix Woman
womanphoenix@yahoo.com

No, she's not. But to judge from a recent diary that's been posted, you'd think she was Satan's personal love slave, #1 concubine to Corporate America and all that.

Ahem.

Some folk with an actual knowledge of Nancy Pelosi (see also here), and of how Congressional events are set up and scheduled, have tried to stem the Lord of the Flies-like hate frenzy with fact injections (such as here and here), but the problem is that the left in this country has been so tainted with an unthinkingly reflexive, corrosive cynicism that even the weakest imputations of corruption, Money Party membership and corporate whoredom are automatically believed by a non-trivial portion of Americans.

DemHillStaffer gives us some facts:

1. This isn't an orientation session for Freshmen - its part of an ongoing series of caucus meetings for all Members of Congress with leading thinkers on issues. For example, there's also one this week with military leaders on Iraq.

2. Labor wasn't banned from this session. It's for Members of Congress only and a special guest. To be banned implies that its open to people other than members of Congress. According to that logic, everyone who's not Bob Rubin is "banned." A better title would be "Pelosi Invites Rubin, not Labor, to Discuss Fiscal Responsibility."

3. Whatever you think of his trade policy, Rubin knows how to make the case for fiscal responsibility, which is the subject of his talk.

4. Labor has a friend in Nancy Pelosi, whose top lieutenant - George Miller, the author of the Employee Free Choice Act - is going to chair the Education and Labor Committee.

5. Why are we assuming the worst about Democratic leaders before she's even said one word opposing a pro-working family agenda?

And Deaniac83 chimes in:

Do I have to remind everyone here that it was Nancy Pelosi who ably lead the tooth-and-nail fight against CAFTA just less than a year and a half ago? Here, read Pelosi's statement on the House floor on CAFTA. She garnered 217 votes against it, that's more than there were then Democrats in the House. Pelosi has made it very very clear that when she is in charge, agreements like CAFTA will likely not pass. So yes, while we can disagree with her decision here, let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Yes, she voted for NAFTA, but she's obviously not an all-out free-trade ga ga.

I think what she should do is schedule a separate seminar altogether on Labor issues. I am going to write her to do exactly that. But she feels that this particular seminar is about fiscal sanity and a balanced budget. Anyone familiar with the terminologies understand that fiscal policy and economic policy, which intertwined, are not one and the same. Fiscal policy focuses on how Congress spends money, interest rates on federal loans, issuance of federal bonds, etc. Economic policy focuses on trade deals, regulations of labor and other markets, minimum wage, tax policy (including reductions and increases in taxes, tax incentives, etc.) and so on.

So yes, write your letters. But please, people, Nancy Pelosi is not an enemy of organized labor.

I, too am not an enemy of organized labor. But if I see people going around sticking shivs in the backs of fellow progressives for no good reason, I'll call 'em on it, labor backers or not.

http://phoenixwoman.blogspot.com