Thank You, Nancy!

Have you ever heard the phrase:

“the hand that rocks the cradle?”

In case you are unfamiliar with the words, they come from a poem by William Ross Wallace:

The Hand That Rocks the Cradle
Is the Hand That Rules the World

Blessings on the hand of women!
Angels guard its strength and grace,
In the palace, cottage, hovel,
Oh, no matter where the place;
Would that never storms assailed it,
Rainbows ever gently curled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world. -first verse only

When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived at the podium on the House floor, the other day, she made a speech where she recalled her first visit to that remarkable building. This took place when she was six years old as she watched her father, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., sworn in as a Congressman from Baltimore, MD. She described her journey to that building. First, she raised five children. Then she got into politics and, as she described it, she went from housewife to House Speaker. (Very much the hand that rocked the cradle.) She mentioned the fact that there were six women house members when she came to town as a congresswoman; now there are 90 and counting!

First chosen for Congress to fill a vacancy, she took office as a representative from San Francisco, California, in 1987 and has served her constituents ever since. This week, she notified her members that she would step down from a leadership position, but remain in Congress. Pelosi indicated she would mentor those younger House members who would become leaders. In doing so, she also took her deputies Steny Hoyer of MD and Jim Clyburn of SC with her out of the leadership roles they had also served in for several years. All were over 80 years of age.

What a remarkable journey it has been; what an outstanding speaker she became! She was the first female speaker when she took the gavel in 2007. Just think of it-she was the first woman in that office and followed 52 men over more than 200 years who had served there. His peers elected the first speaker, Frederick A. C. Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania, in April 1789 as the First Federal Congress began. Of course, there were no women in Congress then, nor would there be for well over a century as women could not even vote, so how could they get elected?

After serving as the Democratic whip, Pelosi moved into the position of Democratic Minority Leader before becoming the Majority Leader. She is the first person to serve in that position in two separate terms and has been the Democratic caucus leader for 19 years. Historian Michael Beschloss described her as one of the top three speakers since our Republic began. President Obama credited her as being the most significant person in the ultimate passage of the Affordable Care Act and President Biden has her to thank because Congress passed much of his agenda in his first two years. She famously does not bring a bill to the House floor until she is sure she has the votes to pass it; sometimes she even gets republican votes if she needs them. But as the members retreated into warring camps, this became more difficult.

Nancy is known to leaders across the world. She met in Kyiv with the Ukrainian President, Vodolymyr Zelensky, earlier this year even as rockets were flying. Chinese President Xi, loudly objected to her going to Taiwan. If she were insignificant, he would not have cared. She met with the Pope. This is a powerful woman. Not only is she second in line to the Presidency after the Vice President, but world leaders want to hear from her.

In her farewell speech, she mentioned working well with three presidents. She avoided mentioning the most recent one. He must have listened to too many RNC television ads that used her as a foil for everything they felt was wrong with the opposition party, for he never gave her the respect due to her or her office. She returned the favor, once famously, in a White House meeting, standing up and pointing her finger at the president, over something he said. After he neglected to shake her hand as he came to the House floor for the State of the Union address, she tore up his speech as he finished. She was great at using symbolism. On the 100^th year anniversary of women’s suffrage, she asked the women in Congress to wear white when the president spoke, as it is the symbol of that movement. Women now have power, she seemed to say as he gazed out at a sea of white-clad representatives.

She selected the Congressional leaders and personnel who successfully presided over two impeachments. Pelosi resisted efforts by Minority Leader McCarthy to sabotage her January 6^th Committee as he tried to appoint known disrupters. Instead, she added two quite effective Republicans to the Committee and refused his choices.

Film taken during the Insurrection showed her angry, but unrattled, calling officials, trying to determine how soon the House could get back in session and do its duty by certifying the last election. As she said, she wanted the poo-poo cleaned up before they returned. I think Nancy has dealt with a lot of such stuff over the years, figuratively and literally; this was just another obstacle to overcome. And, of course, she did do just that.

I can only conclude – Bravo!