What is the deal with Nancy Pelosi? Is she thinking “Well, I’ve fucked up domestic policy, now I got foreign policy to deal with”? She’s already visited Ukraine (“They gave me a medal! That’s how important I am!”) and I guess maybe she’s expecting to get one from Taiwan, though, really, no one seems to know what the Hell is going on.
Pelosi clearly has no idea of how to reconcile old-line Democrats like herself and the new crop of “neo-socialists”, radicalized by the Great Recession, mad as Hell and wanting to kick some ass, but, it seems, not in a way that would offend anyone important. Well, neither do I. And so, instead, we get all sorts of “Christmas tree” legislation, like last year’s election reform bill, that represent ridiculous overkill and which have no chance of getting passed by the Senate (and which, in large part, would very likely be overturned by the Supreme Court).
It’s no wonder that Nancy wants to change the subject. But to do so by engaging in xenophobic posturing of the most banal sort is, well, banal. (Sorry, I’m running out of adjectives.) Nancy definitely handled the Republicans in the set-to over the Jan. 6 Trump riot investigation, and the hearings have been a triumph for the Democrats. Nancy should stick to Capitol Hill, where she knows her way around. Overseas, she’s totally out of her league. Like most Congressfolk, she thinks that people who can’t vote in American elections don’t count, and that’s not the way it works.
Afterwords
Nancy has to work pretty hard to do worse than Joe Biden, who shows, once again, that he can’t think outside the box because he likes it in there. Over at the New York Times, Edward Wong has a nice (“nice” as in “depressing as Hell”) article, On U.S. Foreign Policy, the New Boss Acts a Lot Like the Old One, demonstrating the power of bureaucratic inertia over ideals, or even common sense. Combine that with a Democratic Congress that simply can’t spend enough money on defense, and, well, it’s pretty hard to find a silver lining, unless you like killer balloons.
