Pelosiism Now

Pelosiism is the Clintonism of “parliamentary cretins,” as they were called in better days, confronted by constituencies far to their left. Pelosiites talk left and act right -- sometimes for (misguided) strategic reasons; more often out of genuine conviction. Thus, according to news reports, the Pelosiites are again about to give the preposterously weak Bush government carte blanche to continue its stupendously unpopular occupation of Iraq. To save face, the Republicans offered and the (“anti-war”) Pelosiites accepted a paltry sum of money for domestic spending.

The Democrats will say that they tried to stop the murder and mayhem but Bush, with the power of the veto, wouldn’t let them. But, of course, it is nowhere written that they have to continue to fund Bush’s wars. For Pelosiites, though, it would be unthinkable not to “support the troops” – by disrupting their lives and the lives of their families, putting them in harm’s way, and turning them into the executors of Cheney’s and Bush’s deadly machinations. Just saying NO, as is their Constitutional responsibility, is out of the question. Better to talk one way and vote the other.

How far will Pelosiites go? Pretty much all the way, according to The Washington Post (November 9). It seems that as early as September, 2002, Democratic lawmakers – including Nancy Pelosi herself and, not surprisingly, Jane Harman and John D. Rockefeller IV – were briefed on CIA “interrogation techniques,” including water boarding and other forms of torture, and objected not a peep. Thus they lent their support, in this way too, to Cheney and Bush -- until torture, water boarding especially, became impolitic to defend, much like the war itself. I’ve written many times in these entries that Clintonism (and therefore Pelosiism) is a “kinder, gentler” version of neo-conservatism; that they are both fruit of the same noxious imperialist tree. It may be necessary to rethink the first part of this contention because, the more we learn, the more it seems that the words “kinder, gentler” give the Pelosiites, or at least Pelosi herself, too much credit.