House Speaker Pelosi lashes out at antiwar protesters By Patrick Martin
15 October 2007 Back to screen version | Send this link by email | Email the
author
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful Democrat in Washington,
normally maintains a public display of sympathy towards the mass opposition to
the war in Iraqan opposition which propelled the Democrats into control of the
House and Senate in the congressional elections last November.
But in the course of a press interview October 9, reported the following
morning in the Christian Science Monitor and the Washington Post, Pelosi gave
vent to the resentment and hostility that leading Democrats actually feel
towards the antiwar protest movement.
The Monitors news account of the interview was relatively restrained,
focusing on Pelosis complaint that antiwar protesters should target the
Republican congressional delegation, not the Democratic, because it was the
Republicans who through filibusters in the Senate were sustaining Bushs war
policy.
Asked about criticism of the failure (or more accurately, refusal) of the
congressional Democratic majority to take action to put an end to the war in
Iraq, despite the overwhelming antiwar opinion among Democratic voters, Pelosi
said, I am well aware of the unhappiness of the base.
She told reporters that antiwar demonstrators had established seemingly
permanent protest encampments outside her home in San Francisco several months,
and more recently outside her Washington home as well.
The real venom in Pelosis comments was reported by Washington Post Capitol
Hill columnist Dana Milbank, one of those in attendance at the press interview.
While Pelosi invariably maintains a publicly smiling posture, he wrote, her
spirits soured instantly when somebody asked about the anger of the Democratic
base over her failure to end the war in Iraq.
Look, she said, I had, for five months, people sitting outside my home,
going into my garden in San Francisco, angering neighbors, hanging their
clothes from trees, building all kinds of thingsBuddhas? I dont know what
they werecouches, sofas, chairs, permanent living facilities on my front
sidewalk.
Pelosi continued: If they were poor and they were sleeping on my sidewalk,
they would be arrested for loitering, but because they have Impeach Bush
across their chest, its the First Amendment.
Pelosi is married to a multimillionaire investor, and her comments were
charged with social resentment as well as political hostility. The antiwar
protesters are not only unwelcome because they expose her hypocritical pretense
to opposing the Iraq bloodbaththey are dirty, ragged and disreputable, and
irritate the neighbors.
Pelosis remarkimagine that riffraff sleeping on my sidewalkis reveals
the enormous social distance between the masses of working people, housewives,
students who oppose the war, and the privileged ruling elite. And her
disparaging reference to the First Amendment demonstrates the hostility of a
big business politician towards the democratic rights of the working class.
In elaborating on this comment, Pelosi tried to backtrack from her
spontaneous display of her real attitude towards antiwar activists. They are
advocates, she said. We are leaders.
And leaders, of course, have to be practical. We have to make responsible
decisions in the Congress that are not driven by the dissatisfaction of anybody
who wants the war to end tomorrow, Pelosi continued. The war has eclipsed
everything, said. And while I am very proud of the ratings that Democrats
have on every issue you can name, I dont disagree with the public evaluation
that we have not done well in ending this war.
The Democratic leader rebuked those antiwar activists who have begun to
recognize that congressional Democrats, not merely the Republicans, are opposed
to ending the war.
I think it is a waste of time for them to go after Democratic members,
Pelosi argued. They ought to just persuade Republican members who are
representing areas that are opposed to the war.
Pelosi herself faces such a challenge. Antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan has
announced that she would run as an independent candidate for Congress against
Pelosi next year, because of the decision by Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid last May to push through an emergency funding bill to finance the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Democrats could not be fairly accused of failing to carry out their
electoral mandate, Pelosi claimed: We said we would change the debate; we
would fight to end the war. We never said we had the veto pen or the signature
pen.
She concluded with the claim, incessantly repeated by the congressional
Democratic leadership, that it is White House veto power and filibusters by
Senate Republicans which have blocked any change in Iraq war policy.
It is clear now that the Senate is not going to be able to do much to
overcome the 60- vote barrier that would send a bill to the presidents desk,
Pelosi said. But that does not mean the House will not move to ...
responsible, safe redeployment of our troops, hopefully to end by next year.
This is the big lie that the Democratic leadershipwith the full support of
the mediahas sought to use to excuse its own complicity with the war and cover
up the fundamental agreement of both parties to continue the military
occupation of Iraq indefinitely.
Pelosi, Reid & Co. have deliberately refused to take the action that they
have within their power, cutting off funds for the war, which does not requires
a filibuster-proof or veto-proof majority.
A simple majority in either house of Congress could have blocked war funding
last May. But with the Bush administration threatening that critical military
operations would have to be curtailed by mid-June if the funding was not
approved, Pelosi and Reid caved in and agreed to push through the emergency
appropriations bill.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/oct2007/pelo-o15_prn.shtml
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