Via CNN’s Political Ticker: CNN Poll: Pelosi facing Gingrich-like approval ratings
Nearly half of all Americans — 48 percent — disapprove of how the California Democrat she [sic] is handling her job as Speaker of the House in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Monday, while 39 percent approve of her performance.That rating makes her less popular than other members of her party — congressional Democrats drew a 51 percent approval rating in last month’s CNN/ORC survey — and roughly in line with the congressional GOP, which drew positive ratings in April from just 39 percent of those polled.
An impressive feat to be that unpopular given that her party holds the White House with a popular president.
The piece continues:
That puts her approval rating at roughly the levels Newt Gingrich had in his first year as Speaker of the House. (Back in 1995, Gingrich’s approval rating was 37 percent; by 1997 — at the same point in his speakership that Pelosi is now — that had dropped to just 25 percent.)
She has no one to blame but herself, as she appears to be playing politics with the torture issue, and lying about it to boot. It is extremely difficult to have watched her performance at the press conference in which she accused the CIA of lying and subsequently take her seriously. And it is not, by the way, because I find it implausible tha the CIA lied. It is just that I found her accusation to lack credibility.
I will continue to note that Pelosi’s lack of candor/a background/whatever on this issue does not bring justification to the usage of harsh interrogation techniques, as I noted the other day. What it does, however, is bring into question Pelosi’s leadership as well as cast general aspersions on the Democratic Leadership in Congress which has talked a good political game (at times) on a variety of problems with the Bush administration’s usage of executive power, but have in actuality done precious little about them.
May 18th, 2024 at 8:20 pm
What it does, however, is bring into question Pelosi’s leadership as well as cast general aspersions on the Democratic Leadership in Congress which has talked a good political game (at times) on a variety of problems with the Bush administration’s usage of executive power, but have in actuality done precious little about them.
There is one way to get to the bottom of this–have a Truth Commission where all of the players involved have to submit to public questioning under oath.
Pelosi herself welcomed this–as well as RNC chair Michael Steele.
I do think it is a bit insane that the Rove/Gingrich crowd have made torture a liability for her when, in fact, it was Bush who conceived the policy and should, ultimately, be the one responsible for pursuing what is clearly a violation of federal law.
May 18th, 2024 at 8:25 pm
My guess–backed for now only by the very limited past data provided in the excerpt–is this is pretty good.
Being the Speaker when your party has the presidency is somewhat of a thankless task (and thus comparisons to Gingrich are not quite fully relevant). In any “presidentialized” party, the main expectation the public has is that the Speaker’s job is essentially to convert the president’s priorities into law. Yet the Speaker’s only constituency, as Speaker, is her fellow partisans in her chamber, who hire her to help them all get reelected in the next election.
It is a lot easier to make enemies–from supporters of the president for whom you are not sufficiently loyal, from the opposition to whom you are just another lackey of the president’s majority–than it is to make friends with the public.
I would guess these approval/disapproval scores are actually pretty good, in context. I would welcome empirical refutation, of course.
May 18th, 2024 at 8:45 pm
Ratoe: Perhaps we will actually have a truth commission, but I have my doubts,
MSS: A good question. I wouldn’t expect her to be as popular as the president, but I would expect her to be more popular than the opposition.
May 18th, 2024 at 10:00 pm
STOP! The Attacks On Speaker Pelosi
Last time they tried to attack Speaker Pelosi ( second in line to the President of the United States) it was about her alleged abuse of military transportation. This attack as expected turned out to be bogus. It turned out that the previous Speaker (Hastert – a Republican) made far more use of military transportation. It turned out that Speaker Pelosi was possibly overly prudent and too self-restrained in her use of military transportation.
Now Republicans are trying to attack her about allegedly having been told by the Bush administration about things she was not told about, like water boarding. Republicans are attacking her because she is being so effective at getting the peoples work done in congress, like healthcare. And Republicans want to stop her. Don’t put up with that. Every time they attack Speaker Pelosi they are attacking you and the rest of the American people. If they go after her, go after them even harder.
They are trying to con Speaker Pelosi and the American people. And here is how it works. Approximately 6 years ago CIA had a briefing with Pelosi and congress, but DID NOT tell congress and Pelosi that the Bush administration was using torture ( water boarding ) on detainees. Then the Bush administration sent in Porter Goss to head the CIA and to destroy, and doctor records in part to make it look like Pelosi, and the Democrats in congress were onboard with the illegal torture of detainees by the Bush administration.
See, apparently at these intelligence briefings members of congress are not allowed to take notes. And if they do, they are not allowed to keep them. Apparently the CIA makes notes, but the members of congress are not allowed to see those notes either. And they can’t tell anybody about what was said at the briefings. But the CIA can come back six years later and claim they told members of congress something six years ago that they did not tell them at that time. And they can use falsified notes to substantiate their claim. Planting disinformation was the type of thing the CIA became very good at during the time Porter Goss was a young CIA agent. Just gotta love it.
If you will remember, their was a mass exodus of senior CIA officials after Porter Goss took over. And the complaint at the time was that longtime, highly experienced agents were being replaced by other people based mostly on their political loyalties to the Bush administration and their extreme right-wing ideologies. Which is just exactly what you need if you want people who will be willing to break the law under orders. Sound familiar? I don’t think you can trust any CIA records after Goss took over.
I have nothing but the utmost respect, and admiration for the dedicated and patriotic members of OUR! Central Intelligence Agency. When the Bush administration betrayed one of OUR! agents (Mrs. Wilson) it made me boiling MAD! I think our new Director Pennetta has got some internal investigation and agency house cleaning to do. If you backtrack on the individuals that have been making the false attacks on Speaker Pelosi, and trace who they have had contact and conversations with, you should be able to connect the dots and catch your conspirators.
The key that the CIA records are falsified is Sen. Bob Graham and his journal, and common sense.
By the way, I think Mr. Pennetta is an excellent choice to head the CIA and fix it.
They are trying to kill healthcare reform. And continue our healthcare crisis. Don’t put up with that.
PASS THE WORD.
To The Congress Of The United States:
If it is true that you are not allowed to have or make any permanent records of your intelligence briefings for later clarifications, and protection, that is ridiculous. That leaves all of you vulnerable to just this type of scam that is being perpetrated on Speaker Pelosi. So here is what you can do about it to protect your-selves in the future.
Members should be able to make notes and other recordings of these briefings. Then these briefings and recordings can be reduced to a computer file that can then be encrypted and digitally signed with a detached digital signature using key encryption. Then each of you can encrypt, and sign each others copy of the record that can only be unlocked with the other parties key. And both parties copies can be verified with each others copy of the files detached digital signature.
Very easy. Very secure. No more exposure to falsified records down the road.
You see, it almost doesn’t really matter what CIA allegedly did or didn’t tell Speaker Pelosi, and congress. Because the briefing format is so deficient of any checks, balances, or verification that all we know is that all external briefing accounts support Speaker Pelosi’s version of events. Pelosi and congress should have been given every benefit of the doubt. And that should have been it.
There are many other booby traps out there set for you congress. Be careful.
God Bless You
jacksmith — WORKING CLASS
p.s. I still think the timing of Sen. Bob Graham’s ruptured cerebral aneurism was suspicious. More so now, than before.
May 19th, 2024 at 8:44 am
WTF #4?
Anyway, I think this headline sums it up pretty neatly: Is Nancy Pelosi a liar or a hypocrite?
Based on her underwhelming performance here lately, it’s almost got to be one or the other…
May 19th, 2024 at 11:31 am
One thing that has not really been talked about is how here comments are viewed overseas. When one in a position of relative importance makes a decision to act or say something, they have to be willing to accept the 2nd and 3rd order effects of those decisions. All the 3rd most powerful person in our country did was tell the world that a key role player in our foreign policy lacks integrity and is unreliable. It does not matter what party she is in. She should be ashamed of herself.
May 19th, 2024 at 3:07 pm
#4 – Bot, possibly? At the very least, he didn’t bother to read the post.
May 19th, 2024 at 5:14 pm
IIRC, two or three other Congressmen and Senators are now backing Pelosi’s story.
In the end, it comes down to whether or not you believe that the CIA/Bush’s people
would lie through their teeth about illegal actions.