(9:30PM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)
Note to my good friends at Docudharma: This diary and the criticism it contains is not aimed at you but at the GOS. I post it here for your amusement and out of respect for my brother buhdydharma and for all of you here at DD. Peace.
The fact that we welcomed Nancy Pelosi to Netroots Nation, purportedly a gathering of leftists and progressives, has to make you wonder. For the most part we sat there with our thumbs up our asses, drooling like idiots and lapping up the ‘respect’ we were shown by the mere presence of this illustrious traitor to everything I thought we stood for.
Pelosi: pragmatist or traitor to liberals?
HOUSE SPEAKER KEEPS EYE ON THE ELECTION
By Frank Davies
Mercury News Washington Bureau
Article Launched: 07/06/2008 01:31:10 AM PDTWASHINGTON – When San Francisco Rep. Nancy Pelosi ascended to speaker of the House 18 months ago, liberals cheered. Now some jeer, calling her a traitor to her principles.
In just the past two weeks, this former opponent of the Iraq war negotiated a deal to fund it for one more year. Then, this longtime defender of civil liberties compromised on a surveillance bill critics say covers up illegal wiretapping by the Bush administration and telecom companies.
“You’d have to really think your constituents were stone-cold stupid to count that a victory,” fumed liberal blogger Michael Lazzaro, known as Hunter on Daily Kos, about the surveillance deal.
I’m with Hunter on this one.
We in the Netroots seem to have gone from ‘crashing the gates’ to just another wing of the Democratic Party- are we finally nothing more than sycophants, suck-ups, ass-kissers, and lemmings?
Allow me to quote Adam B:
I know that folks were disappointed that Pelosi wasn’t “grilled” more, that the anger and disappointment so many feel about her leadership wasn’t made more manifest in the room. I’m not sure that’s our job. (snip)
Not our job? Whose fucking job is it then? If the progressive left doesn’t have the balls to make our dissatisfaction manifest in our own house, who the fuck is going to do it for us? WHO?
I continue with Adam B’s quote:
You’ve created a movement so strong that she felt compelled to attend despite Congress’ 9% approval ratings. She agreed to do it as Q&A and not as a long speech followed by only a few questions. We had an open process for soliciting and voting on questions, and we used that to drive the discussion, including starting off with a pair of questions on FISA, impeachment and inherent contempt. We got her answers.
To the extent they were unsatisfactory, that’s on her, and we need to use our platforms now to explain why.
If the movement we have created is so strong, how can we be so weak as to let Pelosi waltz in and wipe her feet on us some more? How insulting, how craven, such cowardice I never imagined I’d see from this group. People just fell all over themselves to fawn at the feet of this disgusting creature. I can’t believe she had the unmitigated gall to show her traitorous mug at Netroots Nations and I can’t believe that the powers that be at NN would even allow it, much less invite it.
So they warn us we’ll be thrown out of the conference if we are disruptive, then they trot out Nancy Pelosi and lob her softballs (while suppressing dissent and free speech), then they let her get away with the usual political bullshit, then they trot out Al Gore so she can hide behind the love and goodwill we have for him. How fucking insulting!
Now allow me to quote Jeffrey Feldman:
This year, we will spend an entire keynote session in conversation with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Sometimes I can hardly believe how far the netroots has come, and in such a short amount of time. Amazing!
Yeah, just amazing. First of all there was no conversation. The discourse was carefully and ruthlessly controlled in such a way as to avoid having anyone actually confront Pelosi. Feldman himself personally refused me the microphone so that I could ask about impeachment. I repeat, there was no conversation – just a butt-load of the same kind of spin, lies and political bullshit we can see any day of the week on C-Span or CNN. More crap is all we got from Nancy, and we sat there politely and quietly and took it like good Germans. What are we? Republicans?
Code Pink are the only ones who had the balls to suggest that they had any issues with Nancy “Impeachment is off the table” Pelosi. And I can’t count the number of good kossacks who have expressed their displeasure at Code Pink’s dissent. How dare they? They should sit in quiet obedience while the one person who has subverted justice and denied us accountability smiles at us and spits in our faces. How dare they stand up for America? How dare they be rude to this woman who has screwed us all?
What does it matter that the entire Bush administration is going to skate scot free because of her dimwitted and anti-American refusal to hold the criminals in the White House accountable for what they have done to us all?
How could it possibly matter to any of us?
Why does Congress have a 9% APPROVAL RATING? Because we haven’t run their sorry asses out in the streets and sent them packing that’s why. Because we keep taking this shit – they keep dishing it out.
Now let me quote someone for whom I have much respect – I just happen to disagree with him in this case:
She didn’t need to be here. She could easily have had other engagements. Or it would’ve been far easier for her to have come here last year, or especially the year before that. But she chose to be here today. She elected to land in hostile territory, where there was no guarantee how she would be received.
I give her props for that.
I just don’t see it this way at all. No offense to those who disagree – many of my friends do. But personally, I can’t believe she had the gall to face us after robbing the entire country of justice and accountability – not to mention approving the Bush torture program.
Pelosi and Dem Leaders Complicit in Bush’s Torture Policy?
By Jeremy Brecher and Brendan L. Smith, AlterNet. Posted December 11, 2007.Have Congressional Dems known of Bush’s waterboarding and rendition policies since 2002?
What did Congressional Democrats know, and when did they know it?
Is it possible that many Democratic leaders have been informed by the Bush administration over the years about its doubtfully legal activities?
If so, are they therefore complicit in the Bush administration’s lawlessness?
It’s just been disclosed that Representative Jane Harmon and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were briefed by the Bush administration on the use of waterboarding. Harmon objected but Pelosi did not — and when she became speaker of the house, she rejected Harmon for chair of the House Intelligence Committee.
The otherwise loathsome Jane Harmon, obviously more principled and humane than Pelosi, objected to waterboarding so Pelosi jams her? And THIS is the person we’re so giddy to be addressed by? This is the person whose respect we’re so desperate for?
And to what point? All she did was tell us lies and duck any real questions. What was accomplished by this kabuki other than to make us all out to be a bunch of chumps? Would we have kissed Bush’s ass too?
Congress has a 9% APPROVAL RATING for a reason- and Pelosi is a HUGE part of that. Why are rational people suggesting that we owe her fealty or respect? I do not get it. What would she have to do to piss people off?
Well she pissed me off a long time ago and I was not the least bit honored by her presence. I found it insulting. Thanks for nothing Pelosi. And thanks for nothing to whomever was responsible for inviting her and setting it up so that she could avoid having to answer up.
The only question or comment I have for her is the one I screamed at the top of my lungs from the audience – WHERE’S OUR GODDAM IMPEACHMENT NANCY?
Oh I know. I was disrespectful. I was rude. I was uppity.
Fuck that.
And fuck Pelosi.
P.S. If you missed it, here’s Part I – NN08 – Part I – Old Friends/New Friends
P.S.S. Please support the Kucinich Impeachment Hearings TODAY!
69 comments
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We can hold their feet to the fire after the elections.
Just like in 2006.
< gag, retch >
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it’s one of the interviews I did at NN08.
Pelosi is a professional pol. In America they follow trends they don’t make them. I might remind you that the majority of people in America do not believe that man evolved but was “created”, whatever that means.
Pelosi must guide a party that has as its interest being in the majority. Her impeachment decision was, probably, made on the basis of a series of deals she made with Republicans. I don’t know what the deals were but my suspicion from the beginning was that Pelosi agreed not to pursue the criminality of the Bush administration in exchange of decreasing belligerency in general and invading/bombing Iran in particular (one hopes this is the deal she made if she made one). Also, Bushistas may have agreed not to play up the culture war which Republicans always win in exchange for going easy. I mean, I don’t know, but I’ve lived and worked in and around Washington most of my life and I know this is how things normally work.
If we want Pelosi or anyone else to respect progressive views we have to do a better job of convincing the public to be interested in facts.
“pragmatist”
I may soon feel a diary coming on…
I don’t really see DKos as a left blog at all – they are part of the machine in my book. As you recall, last spring/summer the impeachment diaries were met with much opposition and little (but vocal) support – and there were many defending Pelosi.
I imagine myself asking her not why she took impeachment off the table, but whether she knows how many lives that decision destroyed. Whether she knows how many young soldiers were killed and how many families were in misery because of this inexplicable decision. I believe that everyone deserves respect, but that no one is above answering for their actions. I wonder what I would have done – that likely would have come out as a drooling stammer if at all.
I imagine they had it very carefully planned. It was one of the first sessions, wasn’t it? – so that if you were kicked out you missed the whole NN thing? They no doubt had very good “framing” for that they expected – using words like “repectful” and “appreciative” and “hospitality” and making it clear that dissention would ruin DKos in the eyes of the country – using people’s own goodness against them.
Opol, I really wondered what happened after reading all the comments about how NP was going to be called out at NN..lol.
Those who stand in awe of and show respect for Pelosi are a big part of the progressive problem.
I’m with Code Pink.
A revolution is not supposed to be polite.
I’ve been reading dkos a bit and it so fucking depressing.
It’s like the NYT discussion boards a few years ago.
WTF happened?
The only problem with this place is the volume.
How do we get us some amplification?
Great piece OPOL, you nailed it.
It was very cool to see you. I hope we get a chance to meet sometime.
Cheers,
Ron
You sure a f*ck got that right. I think it’s time for Pelosi and the rest of the faux gliterati to show us some respect, show us some courtesy, to listen to what we’re telling them, of all things, actually to represent us.
It is amazing to me that so much of Left Blogsylvania is so easily bought off by the chance to rub shoulders, however briefly, with the Congressional Celebrities. After the joint photo-op and “discussions”, they go back to doing whatever they were doing before, and we’re supposed to feel satisfied. What a joke.