note how often the quotes come from the "nonpartisan" American Enterprise Institute.
Can Pelosi and Bush get along?
They will need each other's help if Dems win House, analysts sayMarc Sandalow, Washington Bureau Chief
Monday, October 16, 2006
(10-16) 04:00 PDT Washington -- Mocking Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco is now a standard part of President Bush's campaign pitch.
"The top Democrat leader in the House made an interesting declaration. She said, 'We love tax cuts.' Given her record, she must be a secret admirer,'' Bush told a group of donors last week in Macon, Ga.
"If this is the Democrats' idea of love,'' Bush said to laughter at a Chicago fundraiser a few days later, "I don't want to see what hate looks like.''
For Pelosi, ripping Bush has long been a part of her repertoire.
The House minority leader has accused Bush of misleading, mortgaging the future of America's children, failing to make Americans safer, being out of touch with reality, leaving the middle class behind, launching an ill-advised invasion of Iraq, offering hot air on global warming, being in denial and dishonoring the victims of Sept. 11 -- all in the past five weeks.
So if Pelosi's party wins control of the House for the final two years of Bush's presidency, can the new Democratic speaker and the Republican chief executive put aside their rhetorical disdain long enough to forge a productive relationship?
"They'll be thrown together in kind of a shotgun marriage where they will have to cooperate on a number of things,'' said Norm Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the nonpartisan American Enterprise Institute. "And they are probably not going to get through this campaign and be in a mood to be warm and compromising.''
Pelosi will need Bush's acquiescence to get his signature on any bill passed by a Democratic House. And because the speaker controls the House agenda, Bush will need Pelosi's cooperation to have any of his initiatives even considered on the House floor.
"If Democrats are in control of the House, the president will have to listen,'' Pelosi said. "The only way to deal with him is as a co-equal branch of government.''
As speaker, Pelosi would probably be Bush's most visible opponent until Democrats settle on a presidential candidate in 2008. She would have a critical role in deciding how deeply the House should investigate the administration, though she has insisted that she has no appetite for impeachment.
"We don't have time for that,'' Pelosi responded last week in Portland, Ore., when a participant at a forum suggested that impeachment proceedings should be the first order of business for a Democratic House. "We're about the future, and we're going forward.''
The White House dismissed the premise of a question regarding how Bush might work with a Speaker Pelosi.
"The president fully intends to maintain control of the House and the Senate and looks forward to working with (Republican) Speaker (Dennis) Hastert,'' White House spokesman Peter Watkins said.
Ornstein suggested there would be powerful incentives for Pelosi and Bush to work together. Bush may decide his legacy is not well served by two more years of bitter gridlock in Washington. And Pelosi may calculate that holding control of the House is best achieved by moving beyond the poisonous partisanship. . . .
(continued at
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/10/16/MNG7FLQ5OR1.DTL )
">concern trolling! and from the San Francisco Chronicle, no less. hope they get some good letters on this B.S..
i didn't notice the GOP worrying about building bridges after the 2000 or 2004 "elections"--seem to recall something about "spending political capital".
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