Speaker Pelosi Bolsters Democrats in Birmingham
May 3rd, 2008by Glynn Wilson
The first woman Speaker of the United States House of Representatives came to Birmingham this week to try and bolster an Alabama Democratic Party that has been rocked by scandal in recent years.
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| Glynn Wilson |
| U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in Birmingham |
Representative Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco addressed a packed HealthSouth conference center and gave powerful lip service to the “disrupters” in American history, from the founders of the American Revolution to the leaders of the Civil Rights movement.
Yet her remarks were anything but revolutionary or particularly disruptive.
She talked bad about the war in Iraq, the foundering economy and how the Bush administration has turned the Justice Department into a political arm of the White House and the Republican Party’s election apparatus, and she received the strongest response when she recognized former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, recently released from prison, to a standing ovation.
But her address was couched in the most politically safe terminology possible, lest she offend some Alabama mother who might see her on the evening news.
She offered very little to the true progressive community in the country or this state.
As I commented to Siegelman after the main show, I considered showing my own disruptive nature by going up to the Speaker and asking her this:
If the Iraq War is so bad, why haven’t you led the fight to de-fund it in the Congress?
If the Bush administration is so bad and corrupt, why have you not led the fight to impeach Bush in the House, where impeachment proceedings must begin according to the Constitution?
But I figured I didn’t want to come off looking as disruptive as that liberal bastion of the Web, Raw Story, or the latest crazy man in Alabama journalism, Eddie Curran of the Mobile Press Register. And I figured our own Rep. Artur Davis of Birmingham, who introduced Pelosi, wouldn’t appreciate it, since he seems to be trying to inch his way through a minefield to run for governor in 2010.
Of course Ms. Pelosi was for health care for children and veterans and pro-education, giving a nod to the Alabama Education Association’s Paul Hubbert at one point. Aren’t we all (well, except the Bush and Riley administrations and the Birmingham News).
She is for rebuilding America’s infrastructure and against deficit spending.
“Words have power,” she said, and she wants every voter to remember two of them: Iraq and Katrina.
She avoided mentioning the Bush administration’s massive domestic spying operation still under consideration in Congress, or Bush’s plan to grant retroactive immunity to the telecom giants. She has been at least half way on the right side of that fight so far, but we still don’t know where Davis stands on that issue. He and Pelosi embraced warmly, but he’s yet to take a public stance on whether he agrees with allowing the telephone companies such as AT and T - with offices here in Birmingham - to monitor the phone and e-mail communications of innocent American citizens, as well as their Web browsing habits.
One of the most interesting and newsworthy comments of the night came when Ms. Pelosi told the story of how Condoleezza Rice - now Secretary of State, then Bush’s National Security Adviser - called her one hour before the invasion of Iraq to tell her “we” were “going in.”
She claims to have said all the diplomatic options had not been exhausted, and that the president had no plan and the cost would be in the trillions. Maybe some of that was hindsight?
In any event, Alabama Democratic Party chair Joe Turnham said the dinner was a successful fund raiser for the party in its goal to stave off Republican Gov. Bob Riley’s campaign to raise millions of dollars to capture the Legislature by 2010.
We may have more to say about this later, but to be amused and confused, read the AP dispatches from tonight. I’m tempted to run the photo I snapped of ole Bob Johnson, who actually greeted me by name after the event. Maybe later.
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U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wows the Democratic Party crowd Friday night in Birmingham
Tags: Alabama Democratic Party
May 3rd, 2008 at 6:58 am
Here is a question I would love to see someone ask her:
Madam Speaker! How do you reconcile your oath to uphold the United States Constitution with your decision to take impeachment “off the table”? Is not the excesses of this administration the exact abuse of executive power that the founders of this country had in mind when they gave Congress the power to impeach? Have you not thrown away that part of the Constitution that was designed to prevent just these kinds of abuses by pledging not to use it and in so doing, actually enabled these abuses of power?
May 3rd, 2008 at 10:34 am
Mr. Jim Gundlach, you hit the nail on the head!
Upon receiving the triumphant announcement from ALADEMS that she was coming to dinner, I responded that I would borrow money if necessary to meet for dinner with a REAL Democrat (of course, ALADEMS played dumb). Oh well, hopefully her appearance raised money for the ADP, and maybe one day the Alabama Democratic Party will be what it’s name implies.
May 3rd, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Not surprising when high ranking politicians take to the road; obviously she isn’t a rock star or movie personality but rather one of the most important figures in government. I wonder if these polis take the safe road hoping people will understand context beneath the rhetoric. No one wants to offend while it is more offensive and insulting to be safe. These are not safe times and how often will the Speaker of the House end up in an Alabama venue. Glad our former Governor was on hand and received the ovation.