Metaphor Wanted
Smells like blood in the water, as people start to notice the House Speaker’s come unhinged. Dan Balz at the Washington Post delicately analyzes the situation:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s extraordinary accusation that the Bush administration lied to Congress about the use of harsh interrogation techniques dramatically raised the stakes in the growing debate over the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism policies even as it raised some questions about the speaker’s credibility.
Pelosi’s performance in the Capitol was either a calculated escalation of a long-running feud with the Bush administration or a reckless act by a politician whose word had been called into question. Perhaps it was both.
As a professional tabloid journalist who has long studied and mocked the dry and indirect turns of phrase employed by my boring broadsheet cousins, my measured assessment is that what Balz is trying to say is it’s about time to shove the crazy woman in the attic. I like this line:
Closing the books on the George W. Bush years has proven harder than anyone imagined — certainly harder than Obama hoped.
No kidding. This would be a good place to shove in a “hoisted by their own petard” remark, but that’s clearly beyond the bounds of Washington Post analysis protocol.
Pelosi is not out of the woods. She could have saved herself some trouble by admitting earlier that she had been informed that the CIA was using waterboarding. By doing what she did yesterday, she has assured that she will remain a central character in the political fight that is raging. But whether by design or accident, she also succeeded in enlarging a controversy that is no longer a sideshow.
“Some trouble” is starting to look like an almost British understatement. Odd there’s no mention of Steny Hoyer in this analysis, seeing as the greatest threat to Pelosi really isn’t those damned Republicans at all. Aside from herself, that is. What’s the old saying … keep your firends close, keep your enemies closer. That one’s so close, he can smell the job.
Anyway, Dana Milbank’s getting warmer with his description of Pelosi’s remarkably crab-like performance:
Nancy Pelosi is a woman of many talents. Yesterday, she performed the delicate art of backtracking while walking sideways.
The speaker of the House had just read a statement accusing the CIA of lying and was trying to beat a hasty retreat from her news conference before reporters could point out contradictions between her current position and her previous statements.
“Thank you!” an aide called out to signal an end to the session. Pelosi walked, sideways, away from the lectern and, still sidling in a sort of crab walk, was halfway to the door when a yell from CNN’s Dana Bash, rising above the rest of the shouting, froze her in the aisle.
“Madam Speaker!” the correspondent called out. “I think there’s one other question that I would like to ask, if that’s okay.”
“Sure, okay,” Pelosi said, in a way that indicated it was not okay. Pelosi had no choice but to sidle back to the lectern.
Over the next few minutes of shouted questions — “They lied to you? Were you justified? When were you first told? Did you protest? Why didn’t you tell us?” — the speaker attempted the crab-walk retreat again, returned to the lectern again and then finally skittered out of the room.
You need to read between the lines a little. But Pelosi’s from San Francisco. She knows what they do to crabs. … They boil them alive!
With a nod to Ed at Hot Air, who also appreciates Milbank’s foray into marine biology.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:26 am Comments (2) on Friday, May 15, 2009
2 Responses to “Metaphor Wanted”
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May 15th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
You reap what you sow. Pelosi is reaping big time.
May 16th, 2009 at 2:24 am
As I understand it, intelligence isn’t a criteria for election. I think that Pelosi is proving that in an admirable manner. Her constituency is proving the corollary, that you don’t need an intelligent voting public to get elected.