Mr. Book just finished The Art Of Power: My Story As America’s First Women Speaker Of The House, by Nancy Pelosi.
It was no surprise that Pelosi started off the book by writing about the horrible attack on her husband Paul. That’s how Pelosi has always operated. She has always been terrible at standing up to the right-wing—until and unless she decides she has reached her breaking point or it becomes personal for her. While millions on the left suffered under Republican rule, Nancy would repeatedly talk about how we need a strong Republican party—with no regard for what that meant on the ground. But, when it becomes personal and she sees for herself what the right-wing has in mind for showing “strength”, it becomes a whole new ballgame. And, when did she start taking right wing violence seriously? Not when the FBI issued reports that the biggest threat to security was right-wing domestic terrorism—way back in Bush 43’s presidency—but rather when it became personal to her when threats against members of Congress went on the increase.
Of course, Pelosi had opposed Trump and his supporters even before the attack, but the point remains that her weakness by going so slow in that opposition only helped them get stronger. Nancy has always been much more willing to silence the left’s opposition to her than she was to go after the right. She wants my vote in House elections every other year, but otherwise does not want me in her party except when I’m shutting up and supporting the Nancy party-line.
One of the most interesting parts of the book was the book was the discussion of the 2008 economic crisis. But, even that is flawed analysis. She says she doesn’t understand how nobody on Wall Street faced consequences. Part of that reason is her own party, which retook the White House that fall, wasn’t interested in holding them accountable either—because of the corporate wing that she was an essential part of, along with the new president, that believed more in making sure their corporate donors were their top constituents and the corporate wing of the party, and her especially, rarely saw a problem where the solution wasn’t ultimately to move the party more to the right.
I’d like to write about how Pelosi stood out to the George W. Bush administration—the worst president in US history prior to Donald Trump. But, since she was a completely ineffective opposition “leader”, if I was to write about a strong Democratic standing up to him, I’d have to reread Senator Bob Graham’s book (and listen to the audiobook)—which sounds like a good idea to me.
As to her standing up to the Trump administration—there is very little of that in the book, other than talking about January 6 and the second impeachment.
There was plenty of whitewashing in this book. Lots of whitewashing of her enabling of Bush. Lots of whitewashing of her being a weaker opposition leader towards Trump. The entire first impeachment is whitewashed. Almost nothing about that in this book, especially not how Nancy had to be dragged kicking and screaming against impeachment until she had no choice. And nothing about how, as shown by the excellent Hall of Fame inductee book Unchecked, she then worked to water down the charges in the first impeachment so the strongest case was never presented.
Yeah, she’s good at what she does. She’s a good vote counter. But, what she’s ever better at is silencing any dissent from the left, preserving the interests of the D’s donor class and move the party to the right ever chance she gets. She hates the fact that I’m in her party just as much as I hate the fact that she’s in mine.
I give this book a D. Goodreads requires grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, a D equates to 1 star. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).
This review has been posted at my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews, and Goodreads.
Mr. Book originally finished reading this on August 9.
