The Nancy Pelosi speech that made the Republicans cry:
Context in this post about the Congressional rejection of TARP.
18 Responses to “Playground politics”
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A great speech and made even more memorable because she made only passing reference to notes. Nancy is to be commended. Told the truth and all that.
But politically is was dumb. Too close to the bone. Was there really a need to rub their noses in it?
Probably not, but if you had to share a chamber with the House Republicans every day, the temptation would be very strong, I suspect…
Just thinking of INXS and “Ship of Fools”
“Avarice and greed,
Someday, you’ll pay…”
“the temptation would be very strong, I suspect…”
I agree that the temptation would be very strong but she did stress the importance of discipline (correctly) in her criticisms of the Bush administration.
I suspect her speech on the next rescue package will be much more concilitarory given that Obama is looking the likely one to inherit this mess.
Ah, she’s my gal!
wpd @ 1, the political imperatives Pelosi faced including having to swing around more liberal Democrats in the House.
The GOP should be able to understand that, and they shouldn’t be too worried about distancing themselves from Bush. And it’s less partisan a speech than it might have been. She was actually giving them a bit of an out. But political maturity is in very short supply among Gingrich and DeLay’s heirs.
This is even better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bLY4aUeecg&feature=related
He wants to speak very nicely to his fellow republicans.
Nitpicking here Charles - he wishes to speak nicely to his Republican colleagues in the House. Barney Frank is a Democrat.
Your right, he is and I thought I’d found one with some brains, oh well.
“he wishes to speak nicely to his Republican colleagues in the House. Barney Frank is a Democrat”
Yes! But aren’t they still colleagues? Tis US politics after all.
Kim, I keep forgetting that the average US legislator is not bound by party discipline. So many variables.
Yep, wpd, though the House GOP were a fairly cohesive bunch when they were in the majority.
Letting members “vote their district” is a standard leadership thing even on an important vote. But you only do that if you think you have the votes. Having said that, the leadership doesn’t have too many sanctions or carrots at its disposal if members have the fear of
Godthe electorate uppermost in mind.Speech was a bit polemic, esp before a hopefully bi-partisan political communion. Pretty childish though if this did offend Republicans enough to sway the vote to ‘no’. They risk going further down the hole simply because of wounded pride.
I’m not sure how much influence the speech would have had on the vote at the end of the day, however. It’s unpopular legislation all round. Democrats don’t like it because it represents average taxpayers saving the ass of big business, a favour which would not be returned. Republicans obviously don’t like it because it runs against a pure free-market stance on the economy. Bad smells all round.
I doubt the speech swayed any Republicans to vote no. It did give them an excuse to blame the Democrats. So what’s new?
Pelosi would have more credibility if she and Obama had honoured their end of the bargain and made at least some attempt to round their side of the house to vote for it rather than appear to help organise the package but then get the GOP to do the voting and carry the can. The GOP smelled the rat and voted accordingly. It wasn’t a case of hyper sensitivity as a sense of being stitched up by Pelosi.
I gather too that many Americans are now finally waking up to the fact that the Democrats control the house not GOP and there is some onus on them to do something other than just say “its all George Bush’s fault” over and over again to each and every issue.
The root cause of the failure of Fannie May and Freddie MAc is now starting to seep out too. Bill Clinton will I suspect keep a low profile on this issue.
RNC ad, was cut, sent out before package failed:
The RNC: so cunning - they could stick a tail on it and call it a fox.
Barney Frank has brains? Oh boy, I’m really in Bizzaro World now.
That speech caused the loss of a Trillion US Dollars of value on the US markets and more on global ones.
Good work Nancy.
Perhaps you should have made sure at least 12 of the 90 Democrats who voted against the package were actually going to vote for it.
And your next trick???
Guess somebody had to push the Republican line of blaming Nancy. As I understood it all those Republicans tended to vote against the bail-out because they were afraid of turning the good old US of A intro a Socialist State. It had nothing to do with Pelosi and everything to do with warped neocon nightmares about Socialism.
“That speech caused the loss of a Trillion US Dollars of value on the US markets and more on global ones. Good work Nancy.”
Crikey, Razor old bean, you make her out to have super powers. Helpless Republican members fall in thrall to her wilful ways.
I guess at the election they’d better look for members with the strength to stare into the eyes of the most powerful woman in the USA, and not blink.