By Mehdi Hasan
The Intercept (7/7/19)
THEY CALL THEMSELVES the “Squad.” From climate changeto student debt to migrants in detention, progressive House Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley have been energetic and outspoken since getting elected last November — and, as a result, have become inured to constant attacks from congressional Republicans and, of course, Fox News.
But how about from their own boss?
In an interview with the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissed the Squad as “four people” who have their “public whatever and their Twitter world” but don’t “have any following.”
It is time for liberals and leftists who lambast Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to admit to themselves that the hippie-punching Pelosi has become a Trump enabler too.
Ouch. This isn’t the first time Pelosi has trolled the left-wing quartet. In April, when she was asked by Lesley Stahl on “60 Minutes” to comment on the newly emboldened progressive wing of her party, Pelosi responded: “That’s like five people.”
In the wake of November’s midterms, Pelosi mocked calls from AOC and her allies for a Green New Deal: “The green dream or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it right?”
To be clear: None of these freshmen Democrats have personally attacked Pelosi, and all four of them backed her bid for the speakership. As CNN’s Nathan McDermott tweeted, “It is pretty notable that the most vocally anti-Pelosi Democrats (ala the moderates in swing districts who opposed her leadership) don’t get as much criticism from her as the left-wing of the party.”
“You can’t impeach everybody.”
How about Donald Trump? Pelosi is willing to criticize Trump — “I’ve never encountered, thought about, seen within the realm of my experiences as a child or an adult, anybody like this” — but only criticize. Nothing more. Not impeachment, that’s for sure. The top Democrat in the House told Dowd that the president has engaged in criminal behavior but — wait for it — “you can’t impeach everybody.”
The New York Times interview is yet another reminder for liberals and leftists that if they want to oppose Trump, they have to oppose Pelosi too.
Think I’m exaggerating? Consider three recent — and shameful — episodes. …
*****
Nancy Pelosi Doesn’t Know Who The Democratic Party Is Anymore
By Zach Carter
The HuffPost (7/8/19)
On Saturday, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd published an interview with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that reads like an excerpt from The Great Gatsby reimagined for the 21st century. In Dowd’s telling, Pelosi savored chocolates “with delight,” decked out in “purple Manolo heels” as she regaled Dowd with war stories about “her vineyard getaway in Napa” and the time U2′s lead singer attended a speech she gave in Ireland.
“Bono came,” she told Dowd, apparently with a bright grin. “And that was really fabulous.”
By catering to a very narrow, very elite slice of the electorate, she has removed herself from the mainstream of party thought and distanced her caucus from the interests of working people.
Pelosi has had a rough go of it lately, and the Dowd interview is the strongest evidence yet that the most powerful Democrat in America is losing touch with the country. Pelosi dismissed calls to begin impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, claiming that Trump “self-impeaches” practically “every day” ― whatever that means. She downplayed former President Bill Clinton’s affair with a White House intern as “doing a dumb thing as a guy” ― a curious position in the Me Too era ― and suggested that Trump himself might have helped Democrats secure liberal priorities in a recent immigration bill had he not been so busy in North Korea.
But the interview really went off the rails when Pelosi lit into freshmen Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), who all recently voted against that immigration bill, objecting to billions of dollars in fresh funding for the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement ― two agencies the president has relied on to wage a campaign of terror against children, refugees and communities of color. …