Let me extend congratulations on becoming Speaker. You promised to get a lot done in your first 100 hours: Raise the minimum wage to $7.25, eliminate corporate subsidies for all oil companies, implement 9/11 Commission recommendations on national security, cut interest rates on college loans … Phew!
Whether or not you accomplish all that — I know, you're still only finishing your first full week on the job — I wanted to tell you how proud I am that a woman is now two heartbeats away from the U.S. presidency. Who would have thought, in the depths of the Bush years, that a skirt-wearing American would rise to such a position?
I realize such well-wishings may be overdue. But considering some of the ebullient headlines in the days after the election, I didn't think a lone voter's opinion, particularly those from little ol' me, would matter. (Perhaps I took to heart the lessons from Florida in 2000.)
Well, that's water under the bridge, isn't it? Democrats are back!
Democrats had been practically written off — by many liberals as much as conservatives. Now some leftists are already upset with you because you're not chomping at the bit to impeach Bush. Sure, it'd be satisfying to have a day of reckoning. But would it be best for the country? Let's focus on how to get our asses out of Iraq. The history books will take care of Bush.
My dear Nancy (may I call you that?), some of us blue-staters exiled in red states have a wee bit of a crush on you. A platonic crush — not like the one I have on Jon Stewart, honest. I just get a little misty-eyed when I read quotes like this one from a 2003 Los Angeles Times article: "People try to instill doubt a woman can do a certain job when she's 'the first,' whether it's the first woman to head a major corporation or the first woman Army general. I consider this a challenge to remove all doubt in anyone's mind that women can do any job in America."
That said, Nancy, ya think you can get Bush to quit making such nutty appointments when it comes to women's issues? I mean, Dr. Eric Keroack may have done a bang-up job leading an anti-abortion crisis pregnancy center, but why put someone with an anti-birth control background in charge of an agency that dispenses family planning funds? What's next — nominating a veterinarian to be head of the FDA's Office of Women's Health? Oh wait … that's what the administration tried last year.
It's just a thought. I realize you've got to represent myriad interests, not just women's. You've suffered a bit in the press, too, after you backed Rep. John Murtha for majority leader and Democrats chose Rep. Steny Hoyer anyway. I know loyalty's great, but still, why Murtha? Salon.com says the liberal Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington rated him one of the most corrupt members of Congress! Those kinds of moves can really earn some bad press, like in Slate.com, where Timothy Noah wrote a column titled, "Dump Pelosi." Others just took the defeat as a sign of your ineffectiveness. Could they be right? I surely hope not.
I'm trying to overlook the whole House Intelligence Committee hoo-ha. When I hear the name Rep. Alcee Hastings, I cover my ears just like I do when someone tells me your vineyard workers aren't unionized or that you may employ illegal aliens. (BAAANAANAAA! I can't hear you!) Just between us, though, I gotta ask: How could you even be entertaining the notion of allowing Hastings — a guy who lost his seat on the federal bench because of allegations that he took bribes while being a federal judge — to chair the intelligence committee? Sure, he was acquitted of the charges, but there was enough evidence for the House to impeach him and the Senate to convict him. Good Lord. Wouldn't you like to be Speaker for more than two years?
I know many news sources have suggested you have a personal vendetta against Rep. Jane Harman. Others have said she's been too centrist, too copacetic with the Bush administration — she was an aggressive defender of the president's warrantless eavesdropping program. The most pitiful accounts have described the grudge as a "cat fight." Listen, Nancy — I mean, Madam Speaker — I have four cats at home. I can't see anything in Congress being aptly characterized as a "cat fight" unless it requires the summoning of the Capitol Police. "Cat fight" is a hoary, overused, sexist phrase anyway, no more apt or original than Robert Novak calling Harman your "rival diva." Bleecch.
That brings me to another reason why I'm only now sending my regards. I wanted to give you time to settle into your new digs. The Speaker gets some fine offices, doesn't she? Were you, perchance, able to get the interior decorator whom President Bush recommended for new drapes? He would've said the same thing to Hastert or Gingrich, you think?
Regrettable, isn't it — the idea that sexism might be at play in Washington. I'm shocked, shocked! Of course, you've played into gender stereotypes a little recently, haven't you? "It takes a woman to clean house" and all. And the grandmotherly thing. Jeez, you're a vibrant 66-year-old woman. Do you — and assorted journalists — have to bring that up at every opportunity? "Pelosi is a glamorous grandma who, after rearing five children, understands the need for discipline as rules" (Chicago Sun-Times). Don't male lawmakers have grandkids? I never hear much about male lawmakers' progeny unless they come out of the closet.
It's admirable that you've managed to raise such a large family, even if being worth millions meant back-to-school shopping wasn't too stressful. But we get it already. There are male legislators with five children, aren't there? And some of them might have fathered them solely with their first wives.
For some reason, your ascension reminds me of Victoria Woodhull, the newspaper publisher and stock trader who ran for president with Frederick Douglass in 1872. She would be proud of you, especially for your support of civil liberties. She probably wouldn't be proud that you backed away from impeaching President Bush, but then, she never needed to be pragmatic like you — she was trying to be president when she couldn't even vote. Imagine the impudence of that.
Yet even today, some people talk about you as if you are an uppity woman. Please pay no attention to Dennis Miller's harangues. He said you weren't intellectually "up to the task." Pretty strong words, considering the, ahem, sages who've led the House in recent years. As blogger Amanda Marcotte observed on Pandagon.net, "Someone like Nancy Pelosi will never be mistaken for one of the guys by the Republican base voters, calling her stupid is an effective strategy, because it's shorthand for 'women out of the house are too big for their britches.'"
They're already acting as if you're a bitchy, vindictive shrew. Is there a female politician who's not? Tom Delay was called "the Hammer" because of the hard line he took in holding party votes together. His opponents may not have liked him or his politics, but his toughness was admired. With women, it's a fine line to walk between being effective and being a bitchy, vindictive shrew. Looks like you haven't worried about walking that line before. CNN quoted you saying, "You go into the ring, you have to be ready to take your hits, and that's part of it." Time magazine quoted a senior aide on Capitol Hill as saying, "Once you cross her, your life is not going to be very pleasant." You told Time yourself, "If people are ripping your face off, you have to rip their face off." Cool.
Then, of course, there are the comments about your appearance. Pollster Frank Luntz was way off base when he said on Fox News, "I always use the line for Nancy Pelosi, 'You get one shot at a facelift. If it doesn't work the first time, let it go.'" In all these years staring at Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich and Dennis Hastert, I never knew beauty was a standard for governing. Was Hastert in the most recent issue of People's Sexiest Men Alive? I must've missed something.
Then there's this comment from Dennis Miller that the Democrats "can't afford to let this mask of Nefertiti for harridans front their party for the next two years, because it will blow away any toehold they've established with real humans." Huh? It's no wonder his MSNBC show was cancelled.
It's perhaps unkind of me to recall such catty remarks. Now back to Victoria Woodhull — ol' Victoria may have been a little loony, if you take her early history as a faith healer into account. But you're no loopy-moonbat-leftist latte liberal, are you? The San Francisco Bay Guardian wouldn't endorse you because you're not liberal enough. You voted for the Patriot Act, for God's sake. Your vineyards don't employ union labor! So much for those fringe left "San Francisco" values.
All that aside, Madam Speaker, get to work. And consider these words from that sweet-talker Tom DeLay, as quoted in The Baltimore Sun: "I'm going to shock you. I think the real Person of the Year ought to be Nancy Pelosi, the new speaker of the House. She worked for years putting a strategy together, building a huge coalition. She held the Democrats together in the House like I have never seen before. She is going to change America!"
Looks like I'm not your only fan!
Please write back. The last time I sent a politician a letter was Dennis Kucinich, back when he told Jay Leno he was looking for a girlfriend. But he didn't respond.
I'm starting to lose faith in my leaders.
Yours truly,
Karen Shugart
Editor's Note: An earlier version of the story incorrectly stated that Nancy Pelosi is 62 years old. She is actually 66.
This article appears in Jan 10-16, 2007.