Polarizing Pelosi: The Speaker and her NH twins

Union Leader ^ | August 16, 2007 | Editorial

[Past Your Eyes]

HOUSE SPEAKER Nancy Pelosi was in New Hampshire last week to sing the praises of 1st District Rep. Carol Shea-Porter. She gushed about Shea-Porter, and no wonder. In the representative from Rochester, Pelosi has a guaranteed rubber-stamp vote.

New Hampshire Republicans are calling Shea-Porter and 2nd District Rep. Paul Hodes the "Pelosi twins," and it's a fitting name. After criticizing their predecessors for voting too much with President Bush, Shea-Porter and Hodes have wound up voting with Pelosi 99 percent of the time. (They vote with each other 98 percent of the time.)

Shea-Porter, a self-proclaimed independent voice in Washington, has bragged about her sycophantic support for Pelosi, saying she thinks the speaker and her leadership team are "100 percent right."

Charlie Bass and Jeb Bradley never thought Republican leaders in Washington were 100 percent right. They regularly strayed from the party line. But they're the ones tarred as "rubber stamps" for their party.

If Pelosi were 100 percent right, she wouldn't have a 37 percent approval rating -- the same as Dick Cheney. Nor would only one in four Americans approve of the job Congress is doing overall, according to the latest CBS News poll.

So much for Pelosi being a unifier. She and her far-left buddies like Carol Shea-Porter and Paul Hodes are being even more divisive and partisan than their predecessors. No wonder the American people disapprove.

[Past Your Eyes]

So, how many other districts in how many other states are in the same boat as we are. It is disgusting and embarrassing.