Pelosi Hits Back

What about health care reform? How big a blow is Tom Daschle's departure to getting universal coverage for all Americans?
Getting access to affordable, quality health care in our country is a very high priority. Our committees are just chomping at the bit to get going on it. Tom Daschle was a person who was uniquely qualified — I use the word "uniquely" very infrequently — to move this along in a substantive, strong and expeditious way. He knows this issue, and it's not just an intellectual pursuit for him — it's a passion. It's unfortunate that he will not be there, but the resources to get the job done are still there, and I know that the president will have other good choices to honcho this initiative. I'm hoping the president will include this in the budget, so it will clearly signal that it's a first-year priority. We're ready, because many of us have been fighting this fight all of our political lives.

The administration's plan for the bank bailout seems to give a lot of rope to the very same fat cats who wrecked the economy in the first place. Aren't Democrats running the risk of becoming the target for the public's anger over corporate abuses?
The public is very angry about the whole rescue package for Wall Street. Your question is best answered by quoting Barney Frank. He says, "We talk a lot about collateral damage, but sometimes there's collateral benefit, whereby doing the right thing for the American people and the economy enables some people to benefit who we don't want to benefit." I think what Treasury Secretary Geithner is doing versus what Secretary Paulson has done is night and day in terms of transparency and accountability. This is a complete turn away from the course of action that took place in the Bush administration. It's two different worlds, two different approaches, and any resemblance between the two is just collateral benefit. We'd rather they didn't benefit, but we have to do the right thing for the economy.

[An aide enters the office to tell Pelosi that the Senate has just approved the stimulus bill by a vote of 61 to 37. She turns to watch the news on TV.]

Isn't this interesting? We can't get Mel Martinez [the Republican senator from Florida]. And Mel Martinez is retiring. That's amazing.

[The news shows Obama promoting the stimulus package at a town hall meeting.]

Did you see his press conference last night? Wasn't it the best thing you ever saw in your life?

It's a relief to have a president who can string words together.
Presentation, content, confidence . . . I thought it was really a tour de force. It was interesting, because he used every question to make a speech, but he wasn't defensive. I thought it was great, and I'm pretty objective about these things.

In your role as speaker, is there room for you to be more partisan? After all, you enjoy a commanding majority in the House, unlike Democrats in the Senate.
I'm speaker of the House, so I try to be speaker of the whole House. But I'm also the top Democrat in the House, so I have a responsibility to have the Democratic view prevail. I try to incorporate Republican ideas, but not when we're talking about two different views. In our stimulus bill, we had a strategic mission as to what we wanted to accomplish — to create jobs — and everything fit into that. The Republicans were just taking shots. That's why nothing worked for them. In the end, I believe the Republicans were true to their beliefs: They believed in the failed Bush economic policy.

From Issue 1073 — March 5, 2009

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