Speaker Nancy Pelosi takes on impeachment inquiry: Will it be good for America?

Nancy Pelosi is a 79-year-old Democrat from San Francisco, CA.

In January 2019, she began serving her second term as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Her first term as Speaker was from 2007 to 2011. To date, she is the only woman in American history to have held that high office.

Pelosi is also in her 17th term as a member of the House. To her credit, she was a fierce opponent of the illegal and immoral Iraq War, and also fought the thuggish Bush-Cheney Gang’s attempt to privatize Social Security.

At this point, let me fill in some of Pelosi’s early history. She hails from Baltimore’s “Little Italy” neighborhood with a political heritage rich in the then-working-class-dominated Democratic Party.

She was one of six children of Tommy and Nancy Lombardi D’Alesandro, the only daughter in the brood. Her mother, known as the rock in the family, pushed her to get a good education, which she did by attending Trinity College (BA Degree) in Washington, D.C. It was while working as an intern after college, on Capitol Hill, that she met her future husband, Paul Pelosi, a native of California. Incidentally, her strong-willed mother was a native of Italy.

Her late father was not only a former congressman but also a three-time legendary mayor of the City of Baltimore (1947-59). His oldest son, Tommy (the Younger), was mayor, too, but for only one term (1967-71).

 

Nancy returned to Baltimore on January 5, 2007, to be honored at a ceremony renaming parts of Albemarle Street (next to her former home) as “Via Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi.” On that special occasion, she said: “My parents didn’t raise me to be Speaker of the House. They raised me to do the right thing…We must work for the public good for all people.”

(As the fates would have it, I knew three of Pelosi’s five brothers, all of whom worked with me as deputy clerks in the Circuit Court House in Baltimore back in the early ’60s: Hector, Roosey and Joey. After I graduated from the U. of Baltimore Law School, Pelosi’s older brother Tommy, Jr., then mayor of the city, appointed me in the early 1970s, to the City Solicitor’s Office.)

Getting back to Nancy and Paul Pelosi, she married him in 1963. Her husband has deep San Francisco roots and they have five children together. One of them, Christine, is a noted writer. Her latest book will be centered on her mother’s amazing political career. Its title is: “The Nancy Pelosi Way.” Release is set for November 26, 2019.

Public Television, WETA, is also planning to feature Nancy Pelosi’s ancestry in a “Finding Your Roots” special set for sometime in October 2019. The popular Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is its creative producer. It will be, for sure, a heavily-watched program.

Fast forward to today’s lively political scene. On September 24, 2019, Pelosi opened, in the House of Representatives, impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, a Republican.

 

This controversial action immediately came under heavy criticism from many segments of our society, including a handful of Democrats, such as Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York. A poll shows only one-third of the American people, at this time, support this extremely contentious action.

Let me break here to suggest the following site as a current, and fair summary, of the matter at the heart of the impeachment inquiry.

Getting back to Governor Cuomo. He’s a fellow paisan, who insists Pelosi had caved in to “leftist lawmakers.” He added that this inquiry “will go nowhere,” and that it will “take us down a long and unproductive road.”

Cuomo was referring to the fact that even if the House passed the measure, where only a majority vote is needed, it would then have to go to the Senate, controlled by Republicans, where a difficult, nay impossible, 2/3 vote of members is required for passage. Ken Starr, who prosecuted Clinton, said he believes Pelosi’s effort for “impeachment is doomed to fail.”

I think, at this stage of the proceedings, Cuomo and Starr have it right. Pelosi has also inadvertently played into Trump’s strongest weapon – attack politics!

One of the victims of the ensuing battles will surely be the presidential candidacy of Joe Biden, along with the reputation of his son, Hunter Biden. If Trump could smash the then-formidable Hillary Clinton, with little or no evidence, the Bidens will be easy pickings. See “Blabber/Buzz,” Jim Hoft, 09.28.19, for some sleazy background material on the duo.

Bottom line: What’s the point of it all? Putting all wishful thinking to the side, Trump will not be impeached.

Nevertheless, our country will have to endure another “theatre of the absurd” in the political arena for the next fifteen months, which will make the “Bubba Bill” Clinton impeachment inquiry look like a picnic on the green in comparison. Expect to witness a deep, vitriolic fissure in the body politics unseen in our modern history. Think red!

The impeachment process will also be bad news for the cause of social justice at home, for example; enacting a much-needed Medicare-for-all law, fighting crime and restoring our major cities, bringing gun safety measures into our reality, and many other issues close to the hearts of so many.

The real needs of the American people will go unattended. Bipartisan politics will be dead on arrival. You don’t have to have a social science degree to know that none of this will be good for our America.

The candidates on the Democratic side for president and the congress also will feel the heat. Their exchanges with their Republican opponents will be overtaken by the bitter issue of the moment – the impeachment inquiry.

Trump has referred to his opponents “as savages, spies and hypocrites.” You can expect the name-calling, on both sides, to get much worse and to degenerate into the realm of sewer politics. The voters will be turned off. Then ask yourself this key question: Who wins when that happens?

One pundit, the respected David Brooks of the New York Times, conceded that Trump’s disputed phone call with the president of the Ukraine “was an impeachable offense.” (09.26.19) He also warned, however, that this impeachment process, which is political and not legal, “could be very bad for America.”

Another writer, the highly-regarded David Remnick of “The New Yorker” magazine, is convinced Pelosi is “an extremely stable genius.” (09.26.19) For sure, she has a lot of smarts about her. But, he’s wrong in that over-the-top analysis of her, just like he was wrong by writing that Pelosi’s father was known as “Tom D’Alesandro.” He was always known as – “Tommy.”

 

Bottom Line! And, this is the most important point: The man under siege, Donald Trump, who some suggest, and for good reason, too, is seriously “unhinged,” has his finger on the weapons of mass destruction. In addition, he also has, thanks to the untiring efforts of some bloodthirsty warmongers, the country of Iran, and its millions of innocent inhabitants, in his sights.

Putin’s Russia, too, will be waiting on the sideline, to see how it all plays out. Keep in mind, that during WWII, Iran was one of its major allies and that it went out of its way to serve as a conduit for Russia receiving much-needed military and economic aide from the U.S., and its other allies, during those perilous days.

Also, few will want to think about this disturbing fact: The last war our country clearly won, in 1989, under our doofus President, Ronald Reagan, was against – Panama.

I regret to rain on the Trump-bashing parade, but I believe Speaker Pelosi, operating in good faith, has made an honest but serious mistake by launching the impeachment inquiry. It may turn out to be an error of tragic proportions.

I’m also sorry to say this: Brooks’ dark prophecy will hold up as right on the money. In fact, his prediction that the impeachment inquiry will be “bad for America,” may turn out to be a serious understatement.