Even the Times wants Pelosi to quit—but why?
Pelosi is toxic for the Democrats. I don’t care how much money she raises; her retention as the Democrats’ House leader would send a strong message—and function as a constant reminder—that the Democrats don’t hear what the people are saying, and that they’ve learned nothing from this year’s election.
Hey, that’s okay with me. Because they haven’t heard what the people are saying, and appear to have learned nothing from this year’s election.
This puzzles me. I’ve spent a lot of time observing Democrats and thinking about them (not to mention decades passed as a Democrat myself), and I thought they were smarter and less stubborn than that. And of course some of them are; there are plenty of calls for Pelosi to step down.
Pelosi’s own motivation for wanting to stay isn’t so difficult to guess at. It’s hard to give up the reins of power, even reduced power. It’s understandable that, like a gambler losing a fortune at the roulette table, she thinks that if she just keeps playing she can get it all back.
But what’s the other Dems’ excuse? And why do they keep saying the sort of thing we see in this NY Times editorial?
It calls for Pelosi to step down, to be sure. But the reasons are the same tired old story—she just didn’t sell the program well enough:
What [Democrats] need is what Ms. Pelosi has been unable to provide: a clear and convincing voice to help Americans understand that Democratic policies are not bankrupting the country, advancing socialism or destroying freedom.
If Ms. Pelosi had been a more persuasive communicator, she could have batted away the ludicrous caricature of her painted by Republicans across the country as some kind of fur-hatted commissar jamming her diktats down the public’s throat.
I used to think this was just face-saving spin, and that liberals knew full well how much the American people hate the program itself as well as the corrupt process by which it was passed. But after last Tuesday, I’m starting to revise my assessment. It seems that many liberal Democrats are truly unable to understand that there’s anything wrong with their philosophy or their policies or their methods, or that people can have valid disagreements with the substance of what they’ve done.
It is so manifestly correct, so obviously right, that the only explanation left for its failure so far must lie squarely in the realm of advertising. It wasn’t branded properly. The spokespeople weren’t forceful enough. Maybe some perkier music would help. Anything but an admission that it’s the product, stupid, and that the dogs just don’t like the food.
Neo, the answer is that it’s a religion. An unshakable article of faith that cannot be questioned. They can’t change because they cannot conceive of being wrong. It would be counter to all that they believe about how the world works.
I want that Botoxed harpy to remain the face of the Communist , sorry, Democrat ,Party for as long as she keeps raising money for , and awareness of , Conservative and Republican candidates and platforms.
Go,Nancy ,go, keep abusing those fine Airmen who risked life and limb for this great Nation who now ferry your demon spawn across the country.
Reading that editorial is like listening to an alcoholic defend his drinking. And calling Pelosi’s performance in arm-twisting unread bills to passage is mind-boggling: are there no adults left at the NYTimes? I’m sorry, but if the intellectual elite of this nation pay any mind to the nonsense written in the NYTimes, we as a nation are getting what we deserve under Obama. The inmates are truly running the asylum. F
TheNY Times sites her problem as a failure to communicate, reiterating the Presidents argument.
Hmm, why don’t they ask him to step down too?
There is no way Obama/Pelosi/Reid can admit that their policies are wrong and unpopular. The issues are just too important for them to admit they are wrong about them. Their reason to be in public “service” is dependent on what they have done since 2008.
They are either in denial for real, or they know they are wrong but can’t admit it for political reasons.
Their “it was just a communications problem” excuse is just lame.
I know a life long Democrat who can’t stand the arrogance of Nancy Pelosi.
Please let Queen Nancy be minority leader. Then she’ll have to regularly appear on the Sunday morning talk shows, and that alone should ensure another Republican blowout in 2012 (and I’m being only slightly sarcastic about that).
As minority leader, will she have to give up all the military air travel?
The fact that Pelosi hasn’t committed suicide at least a couple of times since her little “The Word” talk was put up on Youtube convinces me that she has absolutely no idea how others perceive her. It’s just more proof of your point that she is invaluable to the right. Could anyone–Dickens, Tolstoy, Twain–invent such an unconsciously despicable character.
Harry Reid? He’s easily as bad, but I think he might have an inkling that he is.
Denial runs wide and deep. It also helps when one is surrounded by a tribe of believers and yes men.
This, to me, is the biggest failure in American politics. It started to happen sometime around when Reagan was elected, but I was too young to recognize what was happening.
The political leaders — especially those on the Democrat side, but not exclusively — have lost the ability to recognize that reasonable people may disagree. There are now only two sides: GOOD and EVIL.
Does anyone know why this happened? Is there a structural cause? Or is it just the legacy of the overheated ideological climate of the 1960s?
My personal suspicion is that the Kennedy assassination has a key role. For conservatives it was obvious a Communist murdered the President, but “they” covered it up. Therefore everyone on the left in American politics was guilty of murder.
Meanwhile for liberals it was obvious that Oswald must have been a patsy. “They” orchestrated the assassination to get rid of Kennedy, and therefore everyone on the right in American politics is guilty of murder.
Maybe that voice can “help” us moronic knuckle-dragging Americans understand that gravity is an illusion too. Should be easy after the task the NYT has set it.
Seriously, does it never occur to leftists that perhaps others may have a valid point? I try, with varying degrees of success, to keep that possibility in mind myself, but one gets the impression that it never crosses leftists’ minds.
“You know, looking at the government’s financial situation, maybe we are bankrupting the country.”
“Are we advancing socialism? Well, we are promoting more government control of the economy, and that is the central premise of socialism.”
“Destroying freedom? Of course not. People are perfectly free to do whatever we want. They’re just not free to do whatever they want. Hmmm. Now that I think about it, some might consider that a reduction in freedom.”
Huh?
A Communist did murder the President. Who covered that up? The Fair Play for Cuba Committee?
And who has ever said that American leftists were collectively guilty of Kennedy’s murder?
Have I misapprehended your point? If so, I apologize.
Whenever I see mention of the so-called communication problem I think of two things. One is the dog food story you reference and the other is the famous line from Cool Hand Luke. “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” Luke got it and we get it and “it” is being shoved down our throat.
That link on the other thread from Hillbuzz discussing Obama’s shaky behavior suggests he may be the one that doesn’t get it.
I always laugh when politicians say “We just didn’t get out message across” after a landslide defeat. It’s just the standard way of avoiding the horrible thought “Yes we did get our message across and people disagreed with us”.
It’s become such a cliche the more savvy types now go for “We must listen to the electorate and understand what they are saying”. Which is just as dishonest as they’re nearly always saying “Go away and come up with some better policies, preferably some that actually work this time”.
Haven’t noticed any particular preference of the left or right for these cliches, in Britain at least, but then I ain’t a dedicated follower US midterms…
There was a book some time back on the state of current liberalism. Teddy Kennedy’s run for dem pres nominee was part of it, if that will give you a decade.
Author does not spring to mind, but he’s a long time journo with the WaPo.
His view was that the problem with liberalism was inadequate marketing.
However, right square in the middle, he said that liberalism had not always kept its promises.
He cited the white cop passed over for sergeant by a black cop with lower scores. The night shift nurse raped by a rapist let out of jail long before his sentence had ended. The early shift workers riding the subway with the deinstitutionlized demented. The single mother whose children are bussed to distant and unfamiliar schools.
But I guess that isn’t supposed to really affect people’s views of liberalism. Not even those directly and sometimes violently affected.
Neo, RE your theme of change; I am reading Dr Thomas Sowell’s most recent book, “Dismantling America”. I was unaware that Sowell had been a communist while he was in his twenties. That is truly change I can believe in. Going from a communist to being one of the most eloquent and reasoned spokesman for conservatism.
BTW, I highly recommend his book.
Kaba – If you’re interested, Sowell recounts his early communism in his autobiography “A Personal Odyssey” (it is nowhere near as dramatic as what Whittaker Chambers and David Horowitz underwent, but more of a “neoneocon”-like drift-conversion).
Also, not many people are aware of this, but in the early ’80’s Sowell wrote one of the very best books on Marxism ever written (yeah, I’ve read most of them – I’m a pointy-head). I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is short, amazingly deft at explaining Marx’s recondite system, and, best of all, Sowell actually understands economics, so he’s able to eviscerate Marx on levels that most philosophers are oblivious of. This book is one of Sowell’s forgotten classics.
According to Roger L. Simon, Pelosi has sent out the following invitation:
Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the United States House of Representatives requests the pleasure of your company at a reception honoring the Accomplishments of the 111th Congress on Wednesday, the tenth day of November, two thousand ten at three thirty in the afternoon Cannon Caucus Room 345 Cannon House Office Building.
http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2010/11/08/nancy-pelosi-party-animal-while-rome-burns/
Simon goes on to note that as of today each person’s share of the national debt is $44,388.74. And Pelosi thinks that’s an accomplishment to celebrate? As the lawyers say, res ipsa loquitur.
Thanks for the information kolani. One more to add to my reading list. Sowell gives a suggested reading list in this latest book.
“Decision Points”, by GWB will be delivered to my Kindle tomorrow. I’m really looking forward to that.
But.. But… don’t liberals think that people easily swayed by advertising are stupid??? Oh wait, I forgot, we are stupid therefore we should be easily swayed by ads. Duh!
Maybe she wants to stick because she read James Carville’s book about the 40-year Democrat hegemony.
“It is so manifestly correct, so obviously right, that the only explanation left for its failure so far must lie squarely in the realm of advertising.”
That or we are evil (aka Cheney) or stupid/evil (re: Boosh).
A man at my office — a proofreading supervisor at a NYC Madison Avenue ad agency, and former Methodist minister (currently violently anti-Christian) — said this today when talking to a colleague about his passport:
“I’m embarrassed to carry it — it’s so full of Hideous American iconography.”
The colleague (Barnard, 1969, former SDS and Weather Underground, self-proclaimed pacifist) laughed out loud.
The man left the office trailing an oily smog of smug. They really, really, Really live on their loathing of America, their native land. Leftism really IS a mental illness. It really IS a kind of deranged religion.
These two are both college-educated and fairly intelligent.
What we have here, folks, is a huge GIGO problem: Garbage in, garbage out.
The PC blindness starts seriously with Vietnam.
The anti-war folk had a policy that the US should leave Vietnam.
The US left, after the 1973 Peace Accords.
The commies violated the Accords, invaded Vietnam, committed mass murder and mass re-education; and commies took over Cambodia and committed genocide in Killing Fields.
This result is considered “good” by PC folk.
The US allowing commie genocide in Indo-China was the worst Crime Against Humanity in my (1956-present) lifetime.
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