Anyone who thinks Nancy Pelosi is going to be pushed around is in for

[yellowcanine]

a big surprise. Jerry Falwell can go on about "San Francisco Nancy" all he wants. But Nancy was raised on politics in Baltimore, where her father and brother were mayors. She knows how the game is played and no one is going to outflank her. That is not to say she won't be fair - she will be - but George Bush and his cronies have good cause to be worried because she will demand accountability from the Bush administration for their failures in Iraq and elsewhere.

[Virginia Dare]

1. Nancy is just as tough if not tougher than anybody on the Hill...

I think most of them know that, except dimwits like Falwell and shrub.

[Le Taz Hot]

2. She will pick the battles

Don't expect her to run down every case of corruption because; a) there's too many, our justice system couldn't handle it all and b) it would be perceived as more partisanship which the voters overwhelmingly rejected this week.

I'm not saying I agree with it, mind you, but that's how it will all go down.

[yellowcanine]

3. As well she should. The American people want accountability for the

disasters of this administration. Starting with Iraq and Homeland Security. We want to know where the money went and what we got for the loss of human capital and treasure. Be very afraid, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield.

[Le Taz Hot]

9. I think she realizes that they have to investigate

anything that will get them "peace with honor" in Iraq and they have to focus on whatever is going to piss off the Republicans the most. For example, the unaccounted-for how many $ billions? As long as they can save face with the base, Republicans will go along with whatever they have to to get out of Iraq. It's their Viet Nam and this time, they don't have Democrats to blame. As for the rest? There's so much scandel connected to this war that it will be a turkey shoot (apologies to PETA). I think she'll pick wisely.

[capi888]

4. NO Stepford wife in NANCY!!!

The GOP wants their women to be passive and accept what ever their hubby says...remember!!!....She and Cindy represent todays women..strong...and not afraid to speak out...go Madam Speaker! What a gal!!

[elocs]

5. Pelosi is tough, smart, and pragmatic. She knows what she is doing.

Her long term goal is to keep Democrats in power for many years and I think that she realizes that the Democrats have regained power because the people were upset with the Republicans, not because they were ga-ga in love with Democrats. That is why she said that impeachment is off the table even though she might personally like to give way to righteous indignation she knows that is not the best tactic for Democrats and their future.

[beaconess]

6. I wouldn't mess with her

[Double T]

7. Nancy is smart, tough, eloquent, straight forward and damn attractive........

SHE is going to give the 'business as usual good ol' boys in Washington' the lesson of their lives.

[0007]

16. IMHO Nancy's strongest virtue is straightforwardness.

[FreeStateDemocrat]

8. WP: Pride of Baltimore: Nancy Pelosi Learned Her Politics At the Elbow of Her Father the Mayor

By Lynne Duke
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 10, 2006; Page C01

BALTIMORE

When she wasn't racing to school at St. Leo's in her blue uniform or buying sweets in Mugavero's Confectionery or playing on front stoops up and down the block, Little Nancy sometimes worked the front desk at the family home at 245 Albemarle St., taking down the requests and sad stories of the folks who arrived to seek help from Big Tommy, her dad.
Or maybe she was riding around with her dad and his bullhorn, as he touted his candidacy from a convertible.

The late Thomas J. D'Alesandro Jr., also known as Old Tommy or Tommy the Elder, was the flamboyant and legendary machine politician, a Roosevelt Democrat, whose only daughter is the woman poised to be the speaker of the House, second in line of succession from the presidency.

She grew up stuffing envelopes for her dad. She grew up watching how the political game was played. She saw how favors were handed out, how chits were called in. She watched her mother balance full-time motherhood with grass-roots organizing, and later followed her example. Albemarle Street was Nancy Pelosi's training ground, the center of a political universe forged from a community as tight-knit as an Italian village.

Critics deride Pelosi, 66, for a presumed lightweight liberalism they attribute to her latter-day home in San Francisco. But her liberalism -- and the keen political instincts and skill at the inside parry of the game -- can be traced more deeply and more precisely back to Albemarle Street, to the political empire that grew there when her father held court through decades of an intensely political life.
(contd)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/09/AR2006110901581.html

[Stinky The Clown]

11. Some amplification for those who don't know Baltimore ......

St. Leo's is the chuirch at the heart of Baltimore's still thriving 'Little Italy'. Albermarle Street is one of the streets in Little Italy.

Tommy and Tommy III (Nancy's older brother, now 77 years old) were both mayors.

To say Tommy the Elder was 'mayor' is an understatement. He RAN Baltimore. And even today, the D'Allesandro name is held in near-mythical reverence.

And to disabuse anyone of the stereotype, Baltimore was never overrun with mafioso. The overwhelming majority of Baltimore's Italian-Americans are neither Sicilian nor Napolitano, the only ones who, back in the day, were eligible to be members of that blight on our (my) Italian heritage.

Nancy knows the game. Bet on it.

[yellowcanine]

13. According to the WP article Tommy Sr. stared down Hoffa and won

in a garbage worker's strike called by the Teamsters. Bush is unlikely to intimidate Nancy if she has half of daddy's moxie and it appears she may be the equal to daddy in that department.

[featherman]

10. Glad this is all coming out... as a guy who grew up in Baltimore in the "50's

I've been saying this as much as possible:
"Nancy Pelosi is Tommy D'Alessandro's DAUGHTER, for God's sake".
Her Dad was a tough as nails, big city pol who knew how to keep the streetcars running and the garbage picked up. Think Baltimore's version of Richard J. Daley but Italian.

[yellowcanine]

14. And also more honest than Daley

[bobbie]

12. Right. Nancy is classy and civilized but she's no chump.

Smart and savvy. Very.

[yellowcanine]

15. Wears Armani suits also but is not a clothes horse. Hubby buys her clothes.

[AtomicKitten]

17. I have every confidence if push comes to shove -

Nancy will chew 'em up and spit 'em out.