Pelosi

Today I finished Molly Ball’s fantastic biography of Nancy Pelosi then watched the Speaker of the House being interviewed about the Senate hashing out the COVID-19 stimulus package. I kinda had chills watching.

Pelosi covers the life and career of the Speaker, set against the tumultuous series of challenges and division America has endured. I always appreciate a book that offers perspective and insight into events I have lived through, which Ball accomplishes.

I love a good biography, especially of remarkable women.

But perhaps what I appreciated most from Ball’s book is an understanding of how power works in Washington.

Sometimes–rarely, anymore–there is compromise. Other times a party digs in its heels and won’t budge. How does anything get done, especially in the hostile political climate of the last several decades?

Pelosi is a study in the use of power. How one gains it and loses or keeps it. Pelosi has endured while others have failed, given up, faded away. Pelosi is pragmatic, determined, organized, and workaholic, with a hefty dose of Mom-sense and faith.

Pelosi was a volunteer for Democrats in San Francisco and a mother and wife. How she became a force who could stand up to Washington’s most powerful men is a riveting story. Pelosi learned from her failures, only becoming stronger.

Ball’s respect for Pelosi is evident, but she has no political slant. She isn’t afraid to show the weaknesses of Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama. Trump, well, he gets the treatment he deserves.

“If this book has a thesis, it is that you needn’t agree with Nancy Pelosi’s politics to repsect her accomplishments and appreciate her historic career,” Ball writes in the “Afterward”. “I didn’t expect to find her particularly compelling,” she admits. In a compelling narrative, Ball’s book achieves making Pelosi an iconic heroine.

I was given access to a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Here’s a fascinating, crisply told political biography that’s both riveting and fair-minded. Ball takes us through the career highlights and rise to power of America’s current Speaker of the House. Nancy Pelosi has a penchant for describing herself rather grandly as a master legislator, and by the time you finish this book you’ll find yourself either reluctantly or enthusiastically agreeing.
It’s easy to caricature Pelosi as a knee-jerk San Francisco liberal beholden to far-left interest groups. I’ve sometimes thought so as well. But the evidence is compelling that she’s actually what she claims: a hardworking Baltimore leader committed to getting things done. Her philosophy through the years has been ballsy and pragmatic: “I openly confess my agenda; you share yours too. Then we sit down and broker a deal.” It was Pelosi who for months stoutly resisted impeachment of President Trump, holding back her own indignant caucus, until the whistleblower allegations pushed the issue into an unavoidable constitutional crisis.
Ball’s good reporting outlines several fascinating turning points. Immediately after Trump’s election, Pelosi was understandably in a state of mild shock. But through the years she’d actually gotten along decently well with Businessman Trump, who often contributed to her causes and once scrawled on a card: “Nancy, you’re the best!” Perhaps they could work together to serve the American people. So she dutifully attended a political get-together just a few days after the inauguration. She greeted the new President cordially, and then stood back aghast as he spilled into an insistent rant of fantasies about how he’d actually won the popular vote (“Millions of illegals voted!”) and had the biggest ever inaugural crowd. Pelosi returned to her suite of offices shaken and deeply concerned.
Ball’s reporting and editorial moments do sometimes have a slightly progressive tilt. But she objectively lays out the rough moments and Pelosi’s shortcomings. From one cycle to the next, her own party has often despaired that, even as she’s unparalleled at getting the Democratic Party agenda enacted into law, her own brand developed such toxicity the opposition successfully made her their poster child, portraying any candidate they wish to defeat as “Nancy’s puppet” with her holding the strings, an evil grimace on her face. Most of the internecine squabbling died away after the 2018 contest and a televised Oval Office showdown where she stood up to him, the President lost his cool, and launched a government shutdown, barking: “Yeah, I’ll wear that mantle. It’s on me.”
It’s a colorful and well-researched adventure, and the audiobook performance is equally riveting.