Stephanie
Diamond Member
- Jul 11, 2004
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By Margery Eagan
Boston Herald Columnist
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Nancy Pelosi makes me cringe.
Is something wrong with her, or me?
Pelosi, our first female speaker of the House, grandmother, mother of five (four in five years), has been all over TV this weekend with that wide-eyed, runaway bride thing going. Shes wearing her bright red pantsuit (an Armani, you think?).
Shes smiling too wide, ear to ear, like it was just fantastic to get her head handed to her in her very first act as a supposed bipartisan, squeaky clean speaker: trying to settle an old vendetta by foisting on America as majority leader John Murtha - the divisive, unclean, aged and jowled end-the-war crusader.
Maybe theres a sexual relationship there? deadpanned talk radios Don Imus, trying to explain it all.
Is this embarrassing for her? Fox News Bill OReilly asked anaylst Dick The Toe Morris.
Very embarrassing, said Morris, seemingly delighted. She was very stupid for getting involved.
Web pundits were equally gleeful, making nasty Bela Pelosi jokes (playing off Bela Lugosi, the Hungarian actor who immortalized Dracula).New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd went so far as to quote ex-Solicitor General Ted Olson on Pelosi: The new Congress could amuse itself by searching for any sign of movement in Speaker Pelosis forehead.
The Senate, he added, according to Dowd, would be entertained by the expressionless, Pelosi-like forehead of Senator Clinton.
Ouch! What low blows!
I should have felt awful. I did not feel nearly awful enough.
Oh my God, I didnt either. And I feel so guilty. Shes a woman, said Mary Marino of Andover, a lifelong Democrat, at least until 9/11. I guess I feel like our country is so polarized and shes such a polarizing person. And stuck in ideas from 35 years ago.
Martha Shreve of Salem cut to the quick. Its Hillary all over again, she said. I think about Nancy and I think its like with Hillary, a visceral reaction. I just dont like her. Theres something very disingenuous about her.
Both these women, however, like and respect Kerry Healey, who just lost the governors race in large part because she didnt attract enough independent women voters. Both admire Condoleezza Rice as well, though some would say shes lied nonstop since we invaded Iraq.
So is this just another example of us catty women eating our own as soon as they rise to the top? Or is Nancy Pelosi just another in a long line of ambitious and obnoxious climbers who rise to the top of the national Democratic Party - like Hillary, John Kerry, Al Gore?
You know, the self-righteous, we-know-better-than-you-do type whos going to tell you what your correct social values should be, like saving the public schools, even though their kids all went to private schools.
Plus, Pelosis worth $55 million.
Im not sure I see that self-righteousness in Nancy, says one local Italian woman rooting for another. But she can see the potential, a certain lecture-waiting-to-happen quality.
I hope my neighbors dont read this because Pelosi reminds me of some of them, too. One in particular: She has two huge Deval Patrick signs on her lawn, the same lawn routinely cut by Spanish-speaking gardners whom she recommended to me because, why else? Theyre really, really cheap.
http://news.bostonherald.com/columnists/view.bg?articleid=167990&format=&page=2
