Both Nancy Pelosi and Sarah Palin said they wanted to "clean house" in government.
Both have had about 20 months in office to do just that. So how's the "house cleaning" going? Kyle-Anne Shiver takes a little look-see.
Has it entirely escaped the notice of our watchdog press that if Sarah Palin wins the vice presidency, she will also, in one graceful swoop, assume what is now Ms. Pelosi’s mantle as the most powerful woman in American government?
This may have gone unnoticed by every liberal newswoman and pundit in the country, but it is the truly scrumptious morsel that has had my own heart pumping at fever pace since the day John McCain made the pick of the century — Sarah Palin.
Sarah Barracuda vs. Imperious Nancy.
Now that’s a match-up made in heaven.
Moose burgers vs. organic tofu.
Hockey mom vs. limousine liberal.
Wal-Mart vs. Armani.
Drill-here-drill-now vs. let-them-eat-cake at the pump.
Palin’s government floor you could eat off vs. corruption and vice in every nook and cranny of Nancy’s House.
Oh, could this possibly be more delicious?
The most interesting polarity between Nancy Pelosi and Sarah Palin has to do with their house-cleaning methodology. Nancy Pelosi’s rallying cry in the 2006 midterm elections was against what she referred to as the “Republican Congress of corruption,” and she famously declared that it was going to take a woman to “clean house.” Sarah Palin ran for the governorship of Alaska the same year on the same rallying cry against the slimy corruption in her own party, and a promise to take the government from the political fat cats and return it to the service of the people.
In 2006, Nancy Pelosi became the first woman speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and the most powerful woman in American government. In that same year, Sarah Palin became the first woman governor of Alaska and its youngest ever.
Pelosi and Palin have both had the same 20 months on the people’s payroll in new positions of responsibility. Both promised to clean house.
But the differences between the actual fruits of their respective labors could not be more disparate.
Let’s have a little peek, shall we?
Within one week of election and the turnover of Congressional majority to Nancy Pelosi’s Democrats, she seemed to go back on her “clean-house” word by picking a fight over who would be her second in command. House Democrats wanted Steny Hoyer, who had a clean record; Nancy wanted John Murtha. This first indication of how she would use her new power caused even Time magazine to pose the question: “Did her support for a man who is notorious for slipping special-interest earmarks into spending bills prove that she didn’t really mean all that talk about cleaning up Congress? In other words, was Nancy Pelosi really up to the job?” Madame Pelosi lost that fight, but it was truly a harbinger of her house-cleaning priorities and the value of her word to the American people.
Read the rest here. To say the least, the contrast between Palin's real reforms and Pelosi's pretended reforms -- and budgetary extravagance to boot -- is vivid.
Oh, sure, Pelosi did pass one toothless "ethics reform" bill. Did I mention that it was toothless? Only "for show," in other words?:
Nancy Pelosi also vowed to pass ethics reform ASAP after taking over as speaker, but it took her more than seven months to pass a bill that has been widely criticized for lacking any teeth.
The watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste called Ms. Pelosi’s ethics bill an “unethical” ethics bill, and quoted Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) as saying, “What we have before us today is not a landmark accomplishment, but a landmark betrayal. Instead of draining the swamp, this bill gives the alligators new rights.”
A minor quibble. I'm not sure that the Vice Presidency will make Palin the most powerful woman in American government. The speakership of the House is still a very powerful position, and the Vice Presidency is usually, well, uneventful. But Palin will, of course, be poised to assume the presidency or to run for election to the presidency in due course, a terrifying prospect for some on the left.
Let's also stop and acknowledge that "house cleaning" is a traditional female chore, and that this entire analogy is imbued with gender bias. However, as a woman who has largely broken free of selected traditional gender roles, including house cleaning (as members of my family can attest), I find house cleaning metaphors charmingly nostalgic.
Besides, Nancy started all this with her house-cleaning promises. I think, though, that (as history has proven) she had no real interest in ending politics-as-usual -- she just wanted to change the drapes into a color (and party) more of her liking.
To the extent that Pelosi promised to "drain the swamp," it seemed to me at the time that Pelosi was merely attempting to capitalize politically on relevations that Republican Congressman Mark Foley had sent explicit messages to male Congressional pages.
Nancy Pelosi's widely-reported "drain the swamp" remark was made within days of the Foley revelations (and his almost immediate resignation), and Pelosi discussed the Foley revelations as being important during her same "drain the swamp" interview: "In recent days, Pelosi said, their prospects have improved by the discovery that former Republican Rep. Mark Foley of Florida had sent sexually explicit computer messages to teenage male pages."
In other words, the "swamp" Pelosi promised to clean up really amounted to one gay Congressman who was "outed" and then immediately resigned. Pelosi probably thinks she's kept her promise to rid Congress of this "swamp." It wasn't hard to do, since Foley had already resigned from Congress by the time Pelosi made her swamp-cleaning "promise."
So, the "swamp" to which Nancy referred having nicely drained itself, of course Pelosi has done no real housecleaning since, other than to run a feather duster of a phony ethics reform bill lightly over the credenza. Ever since, it's been nothing but the sofa, movie magazines, and bon bons for "housekeeper" Nancy. Leave her alone. She's busy.
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