Pelosi Looking to Score some Tough Points on Chavez
Nancy Pelosi can agree with President Bush on one thing, Hugo Chavez is an idiot. I never ever thought that I would see the day when Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi would stand up for President Bush. The queen of scoring points politically, just ruined Chavez’s plan of gaining political support in America.
The Venezuelan leader, so called “man of the people,” who is running his “revolution” with the old “America is the root of all evil” theme, came into the UN looking to win a spot at the big table and left a clown. But we already knew that.
The amazing part of this story is the outrage that came from the left. Those who would probably try to impeach President Bush if they won back the House, are now re-establishing their monopoly as the only ones who can bash Bush. Congressmen Regal, Democrat, whose district includes Harlem, where Chavez continued his tirade against “El Diablo” Bush, followed Pelosi’s lead and laid down the law with Chavez. “You don’t come into my country, you don’t come into my congressional district, and you don’t condemn my President.”
No one wants to be in the same category as Hugo Chavez and Nancy Pelosi understands this. She is 100% right in what she did, but why? Was she afraid that the Howie Carrs of the world would start calling her soft? Its not going to change anything. But using terminology from the right by calling Hugo “an everyday thug,” she shows political savvy. Not only is she puffing up her chest and fending off the extremist populist leaders, but with a big election coming up in less than 50 days, does she think her promotion to speaker is no longer a lock?
I am glad she is sticking up for the President. It is very important that both Democrats and Republicans make clear that nobody in mainstream (or not so mainstream) politics thinks that Hugo Chavez is someone to work with.
It is rather odd still that Madam Speaker Pelosi went out of her way to condemn Mr. Chavez’s speech. As she has never done anything that hasn’t been politically motivated, it leaves me wondering why? And I wonder if it has anything to do with her party letting the mid-term elections slip away. I am not saying that it’s a done deal, but Americans are seeing gas prices fall while watching the Democrats strategy of calling President Bush’s record on security a failure blow up in their faces as Americans are realizing that since 9/11, there have been two attacks in Europe (three if the bombs went off on a Berlin train three weeks ago) and none in America. With former President Clinton on the defensive about his policy in dealing with Al-Qaeda, it would seem like the right chess move for the want-to-be-speaker to step up to the plate and shoot down the leader of the Axis of Idiots.
But how can a party act tough on terror, if for the last four years it has been calling for investigation on the President’s tactics. Considering the President has crossed the line in some areas of interrogation, it is a difficult to look “tough” on terror. But Pelosi can still use the straight talk championed by the White House and dump on Chavez. But it is going take more than pouncing on a populist demagogue.
I will resist telling Congresswoman Pelosi how to do her job, but what she is doing now will not make her Madam Speaker. And while she makes the same mistake that John Kerry did, as well as the Democrats in ’02, they will not win back enough seats to get the majority. And what is the mistake? Failing to give the American people an alternative in the war on terror. Saying that the administration is not doing a good job is not an alternative, it’s whining and it’s a losing strategy.
I have no problem with the Democrats criticizing Bush’s policy. It is their job and I too have some issues with the handling of the war on terror. But I don’t make outrageous claims about successes such as the unfoiling of a terror plot to blow up ten planes flying from London by saying “I don’t know how long our country can afford George Bush when it comes to national security,” which Nancy Pelosi said days after the successful counter-terror intelligence. It is bad politics and the Democrats are paying for it now as they are slipping in the polls.
To win this time around the Democrats will need to come up with a clear alternative that can answer the left’s questions of civil rights while showing the rest of the country they will remain safe with a Democratic controlled House. Lucky for Republicans they have failed to do that and have instead continued down the same ugly road of offering nothing but complaints.
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