Interesting discussion about Pelosi ...

There's some interesting comments to Anthony McCarthy's defense of Speaker Pelosi that I linked to yesterday. Like this one:

Not buying it, Anthony. I'm not anti-Pelosi -- she has some accomplishments as speaker, and that alone is distinctive -- but she's been active, not passive, in endorsing the Bush/Cheney push for dictatorship.

She worked for the decimation of the 4th amendment in the FISA case, and the secrecy of the telecom records. She took the lead in insisting that no impeachment hearings of any kind could be held, and took the lead again in declaring that the Democrats should not hold Bush officials in contempt when they ignored subpeonas. She eagerly led condemnation resolutions against MoveOn.

And there were LOTS of alternatives to the recent bailout. Economists were filling blogs and opinion pages with a variety of ideas -- some compatible to each other, some conflicting but in interesting ways -- that to me made a lot of sense (and I have an economics degree). Nancy Pelosi pushed for a bailout directed at the richest and most morally liable, a bailout to be conducted by a 5-person unelected oligarchy, only minimally supervised (and supervised entirely by wealthy establishment figures).

None of that was forced on her. I don't know whether her positive achievements could have been greater, but her negative achievements have, to me, been far greater. I don't feel a need to forgive them.
Brian B. | 10.04.08 - 7:30 pm | #

The problem I have with what McCarthy and Echidne are saying (or what I'm hearing) is that they seem to be saying that Pelosi is OK since she couldn't have done anything other than what she has done; like fully cooperating with the dismantling of the Constitution, the transfer of massive funds to the corrupt and the hiding of 'truths' from the citizens of this country. That she didn't try to do her job is just the wrong perspective, our perspective. Her job was to do what our betters said she could do. Is that sexism or defeatism?

If, on the other hand, she actually tried to do her job then she should tell us about it so that we know what's going on.