Nancy Pelosi: “We can’t be enablers anymore”

[DonViejo]

The latest National Women’s Hall of Fame honoree says she's tired of bailing out the “irresponsible” GOP

BY JOAN WALSH

Throughout the ugly government shutdown battle, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is the only national political leader who has seen her public approval-rating rise. In Gallup numbers released Wednesday, Speaker John Boehner’s approval dropped 14 points since April, while Pelosi’s rose 5 points in the same period.

Pilloried by the GOP as uncompromising, Pelosi may seem to voters like someone tough enough to fight the crazy. And with 47 percent of Americans now saying they want Democrats to take back the House in 2014, she might be in line for Boehner’s job.

Pelosi is certainly in line to have a better weekend than Boehner. On Saturday she’ll be inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, N.Y., site of the historic 1848 American Women’s Rights Convention. It’s a diverse list of nine women, from midwife-activist Ina May Gaskin to feminist Kate Millett to Mother Mary Joseph Rodgers, the founder of the Catholic Maryknoll order of nuns.

I talked to the House minority leader about the Seneca Falls honor, as well as whether she’d be willing to marshal Democratic votes for a short-term debt ceiling hike that doesn’t also open the government. “If they need our votes, they don’t come for nothing,” she told me. (The conversation has been edited and condensed.)

I’ve heard you talk about how it bothers you when people say women were “given” the right to vote…

Those suffragettes fought so hard for the right to vote, but when it happened, the headlines all said “Women given the right to vote.” Nuh-uh: Women worked, struggled, marched, demanded the right to vote. That’s what it took. And we owe those women so much, we stand on their shoulders. So for me, this is a great honor, I have been in awe of the suffragettes for my whole life. I went to Seneca Falls 15 years ago for the 150th anniversary, and became further enamored of what they did. The courage of these women all those many years ago, to leave home, to speak out, even speak out within the home, for the rights of women, has always been an inspiration to me.

full article
http://www.salon.com/2013/10/11/nancy_pelosi_%E2%80%9Cwe_can%E2%80%99t_be_enablers_anymore%E2%80%9D/

[DURHAM D]

1. Given that Nancy really respects them...

I wish she would call those early feminists suffragists, not suffragettes.