It's Friday, Nov. 18, the day of the week when I pass along a quotation intended to be uplifting or thought-provoking. Today's words come from Nancy Pelosi, the first female speaker of the House, who announced this week that she is stepping down from her leadership position in Congress.
The announcement wasn't a surprise: At 82, Pelosi is the oldest speaker in U.S. history. In January she will relinquish the gavel to a fellow California member of Congress, Kevin McCarthy, owing to the Republicans' narrow takeover of the House in the recent midterm elections. On top of all that, her husband Paul was attacked and hospitalized by a malevolent maniac who invaded the Pelosi's San Francisco home -- apparently intending to kidnap the speaker. So, it's time. But she leaves behind memorable utterances, and in the spirit of this (non-partisan) newsletter, I'll leave you with some quotes I believe show her to good advantage.
Given her contempt for Donald Trump, I wonder if Nancy Pelosi wishes she could retract some of the critical things she said about George W. Bush. My guess is that she would: Although she could be extremely partisan, Pelosi delivered a warm eulogy on the House floor after Ronald Reagan's death in 2004. And she was at her best after the 2017 rifle ambush by a leftist madman that left Steve Scalise seriously wounded.
Following Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan to the lectern, Pelosi, then the House Minority Leader, said, "An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. To my colleagues, you're going to hear me say something you've never heard me say before: I identify myself with the remarks of the speaker. They were beautiful remarks."
If there's a constant in Nancy Pelosi's political career, it's an antipathy toward bullies. She applies this principle with equal vigor, whether the targets of her ire are Communist Chinese leaders in Beijing, or Democratic donors in her own political party. She took on Harvey Weinstein long before that was a popular thing in liberal circles. She may have been the first.
Her longstanding defense of human rights in China put her at odds with "realpolitik" advocates during Bill Clinton's time in the White House and during both Bush administrations (father and son), and with President Biden's. Pelosi has long advocated linking economic advantages such as Most Favored Nation Trading Status and admission to the World Trade Organization to human rights.
After the Tiananmen Square massacre during the presidency of Bush 41, a fiery Pelosi declared, "Congress must send a very clear message to the butchers of Beijing." She hasn't won this argument, but she hasn't wavered, either. This year, China's leaders sang the same tune hummed by snippy (and anonymous) White House and State Department officials who questioned her trip to Taiwan. Pelosi didn't back down.
"We will not allow China to isolate Taiwan," she said defiantly. "This is about saying: ‘Let's celebrate Taiwan for what it is: a great democracy with a thriving economy, with respect for all of its people.'"
After returning from Taipei, Pelosi said Xi Jinping's threats against her and the U.S. revealed the Chinese leader's "own insecurities," and scoffed at the notion that he should control the schedule of members of Congress. "He has problems with his economy," Pelosi added. "He is acting like a scared bully."
Harvey Weinstein wasn't scared when he called Pelosi in 2008, but he certainly was trying to intimidate her. Calling as a surrogate of Hillary Clinton, Weinstein was pushing a Clinton campaign proposal to have a "revote" of the Florida and Michigan primaries. (The two states, both carried by Clinton, had jumped the gun on the DNC calendar, thereby risking being seated at the Democrats' convention that summer.)
With the nomination coming down to a spirited fight between Clinton and Barack Obama, Pelosi's previous suggestion that "superdelegates" commit themselves to the candidate who earned the most delegates in the primaries had convinced the Clinton camp that the ostensibly neutral speaker was pulling strings for Obama. This was the context for Weinstein's angry phone call. Pelosi wasn't put off by his request, which was reasonable enough. It was his coarse manner and overt threats to rally other wealthy liberal donors to deny fundraising for the Democratic congressional candidates that provoked her.
A few days after CNN broke the story, I was in Pelosi's office and asked her about the exchange. She revealed how offended she was by Weinstein's vulgarity, which she considered not just crude and misogynistic, but also disrespectful to the institution of Congress itself.
"I told him, ‘You are talking to the Speaker of the House of Representatives … And don't ever threaten me again!'"
And those are our quotes of the week.
Carl M. Cannon is the Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics. Reach him on Twitter @CarlCannon.
