Bush And Pelosi: An Odd Couple That Needs To Click
They’re off to a promising start, at least, though one suspects the good vibes won’t last:
Nothing we could possibly write would survive beyond the now-planned doubleheader of Pelosi (noon) and Bush (1 pm ET) press conferences.
Tomorrow, the two are expected to have lunch together (perhaps with others) at Casa Blanca. When the President learns that the Speaker-Presumptive eats ice cream for breakfast, we think both will view this as the start of a beautiful relationship — or, at least, a mutually beneficial one.
This morning, the POTUS and Rep. Pelosi had a nice phone chat, at Mr. Bush’s initiative, one of many calls he placed to incoming and outgoing leaders of both parties.
As usual, Eleanor Clift gets it entirely wrong:
Nancy Pelosi is no Newt Gingrich. She will have problems of her own managing the newly diverse Democratic coalition, and she doesn’t have the grandiose ambitions that propelled Gingrich to stride the national stage like a co-president. Her job is to put Bush on the spot, just like the voters.
Umm, no, that’s not the message of last night at all. True, the voters expressed their discontent with Republican rule on a large scale, but they didn’t vote for Democrats so that they could spend the next two years sniping at Bush (they’ve been doing that for six years already). They did it because they don’t believe the GOP is in a position to bring change in areas where our policies are widely viewed as failing (such as Iraq).
If Nancy Pelosi spends the next two years engaged in nothing more substantive than payback and hard opposition, she’ll have a quite short reign as House Speaker. I believe the voters have handed the Democrats an opportunity to show they can do better than the status quo. I also believe that they will be expected to deliver…
I couldn’t agree more. The Democrats have been handed a wonderful opportunity. They can show America that they deserve to be the majority party, or they can show that they deserve to be the minority. What I’ve heard so far sounds like they plan on the latter, but hopefully not.
I’m a little different than most of my conservative friends. I want a strong and energetic Democratic party. I believe that multiple ideas from differing viewpoints can only help make this country stronger. I don’t want complete and unending rulership by the Republicans. I don’t think they’ve earned it, and I don’t think that in the long run, one party rule is good for the country. However, both parties has to be energized and working to “move America forward”. If one party is always going to be concentrating on the negative and the past, then I’d just as soon stick with rulership by the other party.
Never mind the Bush-Pelosi dynamics, here’s to the cHillary v. Nancy catfight.