Big Girls Don’t (cat)Fight

Posted on January 4, 2007

SusanG, one of the Daily Kos contributors, seems to be deeply peeved at the way the media is dealing with Nancy “Brass Knuckles” Pelosi’s ascent to power, as well as her recent ~~catfight~~ ~~power struggle~~ strategic disagreement with Jane Harman.

(note: quotes within the quoted post are in italic.)

As mcjoan pointed out last night, as the first woman Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi â€“ and the American voting public â€“ has come a long way, fellow babies.

Perhaps itâ€™s time for the press corps to catch up.

From the Washington Post this morning:
Catfight aftermath: Rep. Jane Harman is still quite irked that House Speaker-designee Nancy Pelosi nixed her for chairman of the House intelligence committee â€“ and she’s not exactly being stoic about it.
“Catfight?” “Quite irked?” “Not exactly being stoic?”

Arrrgh. This kind of language reduces the serious tactical political differences between the two reps to the level of a couple of women who purchased the same dress slapping each other silly in a back room over who gets to wear it to the swearing-in.

Hmmmm … remind me again: What was Pelosiâ€™s objection to Harman anyway? Oh, yeah (insert head slap here), it was this:
Pelosi and other liberal Democrats believed that Harman, a moderate, failed to challenge the administration’s alleged abuses of intelligence.
The matter of holding the president accountable for his actions is one of the foremost â€“ if not the foremost â€“ issues facing the 110th Congress. To frame the Pelosi/Harman dispute as a “catfight” trivializes both the leaders involved and the underlying importance of Congressâ€™ duty to challenge the president. See, itâ€™s a two-fer: Belittle the players, belittle the issue.

Try this thought experiment: The next time Harry Reid puts the power squeeze on a male colleague, will it be characterized as a “catfight?” Will the squeezed senator be described as “quite irked” or “not exactly being stoic” if he fights back? Iâ€™m guessing … um … no.

And before everyone goes all “male chauvinist pigs!” on the Washington Post, take a deep breath and click through to the link. The columnist is a woman.

We expected as much from Fox, of course, and Fox delivered. Newshounds has a terrific blow-by-blow analysis of two hours of catty, petty Pelosi coverage, complete with one segment sporting a “Congress Catfight” banner.

Lest anyone worry that our new leadership is all about hissing and scratching in the back alleys over petty scraps of Constitutional import, BarbinMD sent me the following link this morning to reassure us that the press hasnâ€™t completely overlooked the benefits of having a woman in power. Barb wondered if the Nevada newspapers were running similar articles about the new Senate majority leader. Really, people. You must click on the link to get the full … how shall I say this? … suitability of this story for this historic present moment.

Then let out a yowl or two.

Ok, SusanG… Here are my 2 cents.

Item 1: . I’m not going to fall to my knees in a fit of worshipping swoon just because the Speaker of The House wears a bra. Pelosi should be judged on her actions, not on how much lipstick she puts on her face before she does whatever she intends to do. Stop brandishing gender as a weapon. Pelosi is not some political non entity who broke the glass (or marble, or whatever hard surface is is style these days) ceiling; she is a skilled political operative, the daughter and sister of Democrat politicians, who has wielded enormous power within one of the only 2 significant political parties in the country way before today. That is what earned her her seat as Speaker of the House. I say earned, because the election process through which the Speaker of the House obtains his or her position is an election only in name; it’s more about inner party lobbying.

Also, don’t use sexist wording such as “…the benefits of having a woman in power.” I bet you weren’t jumping up and down for joy when Margaret Thatcher made it to 10 Downing Street, and that it had more to do with her being a staunch conservative than being a woman. You’re happy because a Democrat is in power, not because she’s wears a skirt.

Item 2: Claiming that the catfight issue between Pelosi and Harman is some kind of media fairy dust designed to blind us to the reality of important issues facing the country is the view of an ideological follower oblivious to the reality of dirty politics. Unless it’s just another brand of blinding political fairy dust… The cold hard truth is that Pelosi rules with an iron fist, which is something that she has never denied ever since the media began talking about her “my way or the highway” type of leadership. Harman has sampled it, and so has Jack Murtha. The post itself is contradictory: when Nancy does it, it’s an objection based on reasons involving the “new way” promised by the Democrats; were Harry Reid to do the same, it’s called a “power squeeze”, i.e. base and crass politicking.

All being said and done, Pelosi is not the feminist symbol of a new era of wise rule. She is a politician like her male counterparts, and like them, the bottom line is that she will have to prove herself beyond the fact that she is a woman. Such is the lot of any high powered player in the stratosphere of modern politics. Her gender is not an issue, and definitely nothing more than a distraction from what the real issues are.

(Crossposted at Veni, Vidi, Bloggi)

» Filed Under News