You Will Miss Nancy Pelosi

Hear me out before you vomit on your electronic device of choice.

When Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced this morning that she will not seek reelection as House Democratic Leader in the next Congress, it was not a surprise, and not just because she’s 82 and has had the job for the better part of two decades. Or because “House Minority Leader” is a big letdown from “Speaker”.

I’m sure it had at least a little to do with her husband’s recovery, which I hope is going well.

But no matter how conservative, patriotic and Republican you are, no matter how MAGA you are, you will miss Pelosi for a simple reason.

Those coming after her will make you miss her.

Say what you want, but Nancy Pelosi is one of the last, maybe THE last, of the so-called “limousine liberals”. Forget her recent discombobulation  about Trump (face it, he causes a lot of people’s cheese to slide off the cracker) or her awkward appeasement of the squalid “Squad”. Like an aging athlete, her last few seasons were sub-par.

For a long time, Pelosi was one of the sanest Democrats, comparatively speaking, because she came from a connected, powerful Baltimore political family and a tradition of the Democratic party being moderate on lunch-bucket economic and social issues. Not that you necessarily would’ve voted for her, but these were your father’s Democratic pols, like Tip O’Neill, Hubert Humphrey, Barbara Jordan, Jim Webb, Paul Tsongas and others.  They were politicians, yes, but not rabid ideologues.

Corrupt? Some were.

They were not insane. Not Marxist. Did not demonize their opponents. Put America first.

Speaker Pelosi was absolutely right about some things, like Taiwan.

In the end, she failed—significantly—to stand up to the extremism in her own party. Seems like a lot of that going around in both camps.

And now, it’ll replace her.

When it does, you’ll remember me saying this: you will actually, maybe a little, miss Nancy Pelosi.