Admirable Women – The Marble Ceiling

Yeah, I’ll say it – I admire Nancy Pelosi. Yes, the same Nancy Pelosi about 90% of the county despises. Why? Because she has gotten farther than any other female politician has and that takes skill, discipline, and self-confidence – qualities that are good and that I could use more of. She’s the most accomplished woman in US political history and, hated or not, is one of the most effective House Speakers this country has ever had. Granted, she’s not a very good public speaker and when she freezes up in front of microphones, she says some monumentally silly things, but politics isn’t all poetry and the bottom line is that you don’t get to be House Speaker if you’re an idiot. It’s that simple. She might not be a great orator, but she can get the work done and the votes to get things passed. Truthfully, I hadn’t realized just how good she was at her job until John Boehner took over as Speaker of the House and the well-oiled, resolution-passing machine that had been running like clockwork for the past four years turned into a giant clusterschtup factory turning out one contested, rather random piece of legislation after another while completely ignoring the “all jobs, all the time” platform that swept the Republicans into office.

I’m not going to bash Boehner just yet – he’s still new at this – but he certainly didn’t hit the ground running like his predecessor did. She went ages – without having a bill die on her. Whether or not you like her politics isn’t the issue here. It’s organizational skill, leadership ability, and a bit of shrewd political sense. Case in point  – her not pursuing an impeachment of Dubya once she became Speaker. A lot of liberals thought it was a great idea, but she saw the serious flaws in that plan and took it off the table and once it was off the table, it stayed off.  She can keep her caucus organized and can get the votes out which is important to keep things moving. If you strip away all the layers of demagoguery, you find a strong and skilled politician. It may be my recent mad-dash-to-the-left attitude of recent months, but I find myself being one of the two dozen or so people who don’t hate Nancy Pelosi.

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