Truth In Politics: Pelosi’s Blooper Reel Is For Real

In 2006, Congresswoman, Nancy Pelosi, made history when she became the first female Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. In her early speeches as Speaker, Pelosi, as politicians are prone to do, made grand promises of great things to come. Four years later, she’s a lame duck Speaker, having suffered one of the worst reversals of fortune in the history of the job. How did she actually perform? Turns out, her many lowlights episodes, usually the stuff of anomalous blooper reels, is Pelosi for real.

Ethics in Government

In 2006, Pelosi promised to “drain the swamp” of political corruption. How’s that swamp doing? Voters today believe there are more alligators swimming in it than four years ago. It’s not hard to see why with Charles Rangel, Maxine Waters, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Eric Massa and the Gulfstream scandal, among others, in the headlines.

But, Pelosi did drain the Democrat membership of those pesky moderates by pushing through a series of bills that voters rejected, along with their representatives. What remains of the Democrats are mostly congressmen from liberal districts who risked nothing in backing the Speaker’s play.

Bipartisanship

One of Obama’s big 2008 campaign promises was a return to bipartisanship. Pelosi couldn’t wait to set that record straight. In referring to the stimulus bill, she said, “Yes, we wrote the bill. Yes, we won the election.”

She’s refused to meet with Republican leaders in the past four years, preferring to knock bills through Congress like croquet balls through the wickets. All the while ignoring vocal objections from voters. In many ways, Pelosi is the step-mother of the Tea Party protest movement.

Obamacare

Regarding Obamacare, Pelosi stated, “But, we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”

Her idea that representative government means the represented can’t see what’s coming until they’ve been run over by it, is anathema. Pelosi’s House, Reid’s Senate and Obama’s Administration have created laws without allowing either the consideration of other ideas or a fair preview by those affected. Bills have been enacted by this presumptive oligarchy using the tools of a democracy for its own ends. By smacking Pelosi’s brand of government back through the wickets, voters stated a clear preference for gridlock, if need be, over rule by the few.

In another pitch for Obamacare, Pelosi stated, “We see it as an entrepreneurial bill,…you can leave your work…because you have health care.”

Just quit your job because your neighbors who work for a living will pay your health insurance costs. What a really keen idea, especially during a time of record joblessness, unrestrained deficit spending and the longest recession since the Great Depression. Really keen, that is, for Barney, the Big Purple Dinosaur. But, not for the person who stands second in the succession line to the President of the United States.

Economic Recovery

One of Pelosi’s big recovery guns is unemployment benefits. “[It] is one of the biggest stimuluses (sic) to our economy…It creates jobs faster than almost any other initiative you can name.”

Really? Almost six months later, unemployment remains at the same high level. Moreover, jobs created by spending unemployment checks are unskilled, just like the vast majority of private sector jobs created by stimulus spending. Predominantly unskilled job creation is one of the worst long-term effects of the Great Recovery. It permanently decreases tax revenue below pre-Recession levels and increases the demand for Government services. Nancynomics definitely needs some tweaking, like with a few sticks of dynamite.

In defending birth control reimbursement in the stimulus package, Pelosi stated, “contraceptives will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.”

Maybe, baby, but, only if infants are a burden on the Treasury, as in, the people who have them won’t support them. Of course, that would mean an increase in government benefits, which, under her other stimulus theory, means an even bigger shot in the recovery arm. So, maybe she’s now referring to the tax deduction that the stork’s bundles of joy come diapered in, which means less government revenue, sort of. Or, maybe she means something else.  We’ll never know. She didn’t explain her statement.

Leadership

Insisting on remaining her party’s leader in Congress to preserve all her good works, Pelosi is standing for election as the new House minority leader. This after voters last week soundly rebuffed those works as bad for the Country and bad for them.

Moderate Democrats in the House are lining up in opposition to her effort, fully recognizing that their numbers have dwindled because of her leadership. Most observers don’t give them much of a chance. Meanwhile, later today, she’s hosting a bash to celebrate her accomplishments in the 111th Congress.

Her vow to remain in power is one of her biggest bloopers ever. She’s shoveling dirt in the faces of her members who took the bullet for her on November 2. She’s also preserving the perception that the Democrats missed the message of the mid-terms, keeping them on a collision course with the 2012 electorate.

Blooper reels usually consist of bumbling exceptions to an otherwise competent record. But, with Pelosi, bloopers are her record. Her reel for real. She’s a larger than life goof ball with a talent for control and a will that bends to no one.

Does this make her an ideologue, steadfastly remaining true to her political philosophy? Or is she just an exceptionally successful, power-hungry politico? Seriously, does it matter if you’re killed with the best intentions or merely for selfish reasons? Either way, you’re a goner.

See you on the left-side.