How Nancy Got Her Groove Back

After a difficult 2007, Nancy Pelosi has once again found her groove and her backbone. I was really blown away by her show of support for the Dalai Lama - given all of China's economic power, it would have been easy to avoid the meeting or just say something tepid.

But that's just the beginning. She also refused to give President Bush the power to wiretap Americans without a warrant and passed an energy bill that will significantly reduce oil usage and global warming pollution, standing up to several powerful Democrats still toadying up to the auto industry. She's found her courage and she's using it to get results.

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During my book tour, I've talked to a lot of progressive media who've loved my book, but have one big question: why I included a chapter in it describing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a "progressive hero." If she's such a hero, they usually ask, why hasn't she more forcefully challenged the Bush administration on funding of the Iraq war; why hasn't she started impeachment proceedings against President Bush and Vice President Cheney?

Of course, I agree that Democrats haven't been forceful enough in pushing an end to the Iraq War. But it's important to recognize that a lot of that is because of the tiny majority in the Senate, and the overly-conciliatory Democratic leadership in the upper house. And no matter what, Pelosi is a vast improvement over her Democratic leadership predecessor, Dick Gephardt, who cut a deal with President Bush just days before the 2002 elections to support the Iraq War, cutting his fellow anti-war Democrats off at the knees. That's something Pelosi would never do (also, Gephardt has now gone on to lobby for Peabody Coal, Goldman Sachs, and the Government of Turkey).

The impeachment question is more complicated. Pelosi has said she would likely vote for impeachment, but doesn't want to invest the House's time in impeaching Bush and Cheney when Democrats just plain don't have the votes to remove him from office. She argues it would get in the way of passing the progressive agenda Democrats were elected on. For a long time, that made sense to me. But then Democrats stopped trying to pass a progressive agenda. Not only did they authorize almost unlimited funds for the Iraq War, they actually went out of their way to pass one of President Bush's top priorities, expansion of Nafta to Peru, even as Bush and the GOP were obstructing the entire Democratic agenda; and they voted to allow the Bush administration to spy on American citizens without even getting a warrant; the immigration bill Democrats would have undermined union jobs and hurt immigrants too, not to mention all the endangered wildlife threatened by the Bush administration's border wall. If they weren't actually working on a progressive agenda, why not just focus the attention of the nation on President Bush's crimes?

But with Pelosi's stands on wiretapping and the energy bill, it seems she's finally found her way - and may become one of the best and most courageous leaders of the 21st Century.