[lbo-talk] Nancy Pelosi, fighting liberal

[Chris Maisano]

Can someone please explain how anyone could find anything worthwhile in this person? From the latest New York Magazine (http://nymag.com/news/politics/61736/):
 
And then of course there’s health care. Before she unveiled her $894 billion bill last week, she and her liberal allies were playing a game of chicken with the public option—“the robust public option,” in the jargon—for months. The base, the bloggers, the Obamaniacs who have lately been losing a little faith in their hero, wanted their due, having been rolled by the moderates over and over, at least that’s how they felt. The robust public option was not only a policy but a kind of battle flag, and Pelosi was the one carrying it, saying just what they wanted to hear. “A trigger is an excuse for not doing anything,” she said, dismissing out of hand the vaunted Olympia Snowe proposal, and breathed fire at the insurance companies: “It’s almost immoral, what they are doing,” she said. “They are the villains in this.”
 

But Pelosi has got a House to run, and her progressive friends were not the only ones who had to be taken care of. Out of sight, politics in the House was much squishier, and Pelosi was trying to tell everyone what they wanted to hear while counting votes, which she does with precision. The president was nowhere to be found; “It’s like waiting for Godot over here,” says Representative Anthony Weiner.
 

The face the public saw was that cartoon liberal—but in the bubble, the story is a little different. Privately, she was getting frustrated with the progressives and their whining and carping. “There they are, posing for holy pictures,” she likes to say. “Oh, they want to be sainted.” Noble aims are one thing, but this goop is quite another. To her, you can stand in the gallery and have a media moment. Or you can come into her office and pass this legislation.