first posted at My Left Wing
Gold Star mom and anti-Iraq War gadfly Cindy Sheehan is going to run against Nancy Pelosi unless the California Democrat files articles of impeachment against George W. Bush.
“Democrats and Americans feel betrayed by the Democratic leadership,” Sheehan told The Associated Press. “We hired them to bring an end to the war. I’m not too far from San Francisco, so it wouldn’t be too big of a move for me. I would give her a run for her money.”
I don’t think she’s kidding, either.
I’ve never really felt comfortable about Nancy Pelosi, even when I lived in California. The way in which she (like Dianne Feinstein) fought her way up the hierarchy of the Northern California Democrats is one of those very interesting chapters in Cali politics. For all of her liberal credentials, Pelosi is more a Beltway-corporate Dem consultant-run Democrat. Bruce Brugmann of the Bay Guardian had this observation before Pelosi took control:
…Pelosi gives every signal, publicly and privately, that she won’t be leading a strong charge against Bush and the war and the sudden surge and acceleration of more troops into Iraq. She has already made it clear she won’t use the only real levers of power the Democrats have (impeachment proceedings and the the power of the budget to defund the war) or even the bully pulpit of her new office. As her constituents in San Francisco and the voters in the last election have made clear, there’s a misbegotten war on and they want it stopped and they don’t want Bush to be following fellow Texan LBJ in Vietnam by sending in more troops, more troops, more troops, to surge and accelerate in Iraq.
But that’s just what she did.
And the ways in which Pelosi, along with Harry Reid, has helped to splinter the Congressional Black Caucus, forcing John Conyers to back down from his threats of impeachment, and among others, killing former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney’s career and re-election. McKinney, no matter what you may think about some of her ill-informed advocacies, her hairdoes, and whether she actually decked that Capitol Hill guard, was still anti-Iraq War. Pelosi loathed her, apparently because McKinney refused to take dictation from anybody talking down to her from above, and took advantage of her situation to sit on the Black Caucus’ hands about the controversy.
On the evening of April 5, undoubtedly on orders from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, CBC chairman Mel Watt gathered twenty or so members to browbeat McKinney into firing her legal team and cease appearing before the media. Watt absented himself from the beat-down, so that it would not appear to be an “official” CBC event.
As congressional aides wandered in and out of the room, some Members dutifully echoed Pelosi’s demand that McKinney not frame the March 28 confrontation with the policeman as a “racial” incident, and that she issue an apology on the House floor the following morning. According to several sources who spoke with BC on condition of anonymity, and based on an account given by McKinney staff assistant Faye Coffield to a weekly Atlanta meeting of the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, a “consensus” was reached that McKinney would deliver the apology and abandon efforts to defend herself in the media (although not her legal team).
The next morning, at the appointed hour, McKinney was prepared to offer her apology to the House. But Mel Watt had already put the word out that CBC members were to renege on their part of the deal. The Caucus must not stand with McKinney when she stepped to the microphone. Mel Watt, Nancy Pelosi’s poodle, attempted to enforce his Mistress’s wish that McKinney appear utterly isolated and alone.
Conyers got the same kind of treatment according to Black Agenda Report:
Reid and Pelosi have their own little reign of terror in Washington. They have cracked the whip and told progressives to shut up and toe the party line. John Conyers is one of their victims. He has been in Congress longer than all but a few of his colleagues and has been called the conscience of the Congressional Black Caucus. He now serves as Chairman of the House Judiciary committee. Ever since the Republican victory in 1994, progressives have hoped for a return to Democratic control and with it the return of stalwarts like John Conyers to committee chairmanships.
While Democrats were in the wilderness, Conyers spoke often about impeachment and unequivocally stated that he intended to hold hearings as soon as he had the opportunity. In 2005 Judiciary Committee staff issued a report recommending that Congress establish a select committee to investigate whether or not the President Bush and Vice President Cheney had committed impeachable offenses.
Once Conyers had that power, he refused to use it. He was forced into silence by Pelosi, who said that impeachment is “off the table.” Conyers had a strange defense. He called himself a liar:
“In this campaign, there was an orchestrated right-wing effort to distort my position on impeachment. The incoming speaker has said that impeachment is off the table. I am in total agreement with her on this issue: Impeachment is off the table.” Just to make certain he wasn’t misunderstood, Conyers added, “Impeachment would not be good for the American people. The country does not want or need any more paralyzed partisan government.”
This is how Pelosi really deals in Congress. She stifles and crushes progressives, liberals and others who dissent from the status quo. Let’s not beat about the bush about Madame Speaker. When she conferred with Bush not long after the Dem victory in 2006, it was more than just two politicians well met. It was two ‘killers’ meeting on equal terms.
Lately, there have been rumors of a McKinney challenge in 2008. She’s not completely gone, and apparently Hank Johnson hasn’t been doing much.
I see only one problem with Sheehan, and that is she would have to be more than just a single-issue candidate. Pelosi has other problems among her constituents that could also be capitalized on, and among them is the fact that Pelosi, along with former Mayor Willie Brown and other S.F. Democrats sold out the immense Presidio property not for public use as part of the Golden Gate National Park created by the late Rep. Phil Burton, her predecessor, but for corporate interests and sprawl.
Essentially it was Rep. Nancy Pelosi who created the all-powerful, arrogant, and unaccountable Presidio Trust to simply have its way with the conversion of the park, one of most breathtaking, inspiring pieces of real estate in the world, situated right here in our own front yard.
The voices of San Franciscans hoping to inject any conscience into the transition process of the military base into a national park have been basically ignored from the beginning; any opinions expressed at the mandated community hearings that did not fit in with the trust’s plans counted for nothing.
Private enterprise at the Presidio may also be exempt from all local and state labor laws.
While California’s minimum wage is $7.50 and San Francisco’s is $9.14, the federal hourly rate is currently $5.15 — and arguably the only one that applies in the Presidio.
Several employment lawyers contacted by us initially suggested that California’s labor statutes would have to apply in the Presidio, but Chris Cannon, a lawyer familiar with the situation, did not.
“I’ve gotten a lot of people acquitted on a criminal basis applying that same validity,” he said […] “It’s like a little piece of Nevada here in California.”
Cannon has litigated several cases in the Presidio, most notably on the controversial issue of where and when dogs can be off leash. “Given the history of the Presidio, I think there’s a very good argument that California laws don’t apply.”
It’s easy to extrapolate that nothing that’s been passed in Sacramento or at City Hall would apply to the Presidio, including the recent universal health care plan passed by the Board of Supervisors and the paid sick-leave that voters approved.
The upshot: the author of the bill establishing the Presidio park, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is a big favorite of organized labor, may have created a place where private employers can freely flout state and local laws designed to protect workers.
Doesn’t this sound a lot like New Orleans, with some of their reconstruction workers being brought in from south of the border, with few if any labor rights? It’s not just Bush corporate flunkies making millions off places like New Orleans, but Dems signing over huge tracts of public land to big businesses who fill their re-election coffers (and possibly much more).
Sheehan said she lives in a Sacramento suburb but declined to disclose which city, citing safety reasons. The area is outside Pelosi’s district, but there are no residency requirements for congressional members, according to the California secretary of state’s office.
But Pelosi hardly bothers to come home to publicly campaign.
Sheehan must get to know Pelosi’s constituents in San Francisco. They are concerned not only with national issues but with their local concerns. The national is influencing the local only so much, because so much treasure as well as blood is being needlessly expended there. Once America pulls out of Iraq, Sheehan would have to deal with the usual sturm und drang of local and state concerns. The question remains, is Sheehan a serious candidate able to contend with all of the myriad problems that the Bay Area currently faces? Otherwise, it’s just more grandstanding. I wouldn’t want her candidacy to be considered less than serious.
Sheehan said she hopes Pelosi files the articles of impeachment so Sheehan can move onto her next projects, including overseas trips for humanitarian work. But if not, Sheehan said she is ready to run for office.
“I’m doing it to encourage other people to run against Congress members who aren’t doing their jobs, who are beholden to special interests,” Sheehan said. “She (Pelosi) let the people down who worked hard to put Democrats back in power, who we thought were our hope for change.”
Maybe, but her Achilles heel is as a single-issue candidate. Pelosi has been in office since 1986, and could wipe the floor with her on just this alone.
Nonetheless, I wish Cindy well.
