60 Minutes gives Nancy Pelosi a softball interview — and exposes a weakling

Nancy Pelosi was interviewed on 60 Minutes last night, and in yuckily flattering terms. "She's the most powerful woman in American political history," Lesley Stahl intoned at the opener. Pelosi got lots of airtime after it to natter on about her leadership, her being a woman, her denials of being a socialist, her supposed historic role, and her efforts to control her unruly party. The only thing one can conclude is that 60 Minutes gave her a lot of space for spin control, wittingly or not. But the real conclusion is that the Democratic leader is a weakling.

Start with President Trump's Twitter take on it: We've reached a sad point where @SpeakerPelosi is so terrified of offending her new bosses, Omar/AOC/Tlaib, that those 3 could submit a resolution deeming 911 an inside job & I'm confident that 95% of House Dems would still be too afraid to cross them.



They run the Dem Party now — Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) April 14, 2019 And here are some even more vinegary observations from Trump's allies and inner circle: We've reached a sad point where @SpeakerPelosi is so terrified of offending her new bosses, Omar/AOC/Tlaib, that those 3 could submit a resolution deeming 911 an inside job & I'm confident that 95% of House Dems would still be too afraid to cross them.



They run the Dem Party now — Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) April 14, 2019 She looks like a kidnap victim with a gun to her ribs, and the cop is asking, “You okay, lady?” https://t.co/pQOXFNdMBn — James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) April 15, 2019 .@SpeakerPelosi knows she’s been dethroned. https://t.co/LO3XCYD8wY — Sebastian Gorka DrG (@SebGorka) April 15, 2019 She got into her second stretch as speaker by a squeak, not because she was "a strong woman," as 60 Minutes sought to portray her. She did so with large numbers of incoming Democrats promising to oppose her. A few who crossed over — the crazies, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar — did so with the promise of fancy committee seats, well above their intellectual heft or seniority. That's created the current dumpster fire in Congress, and the net result has so far been that she's now their little pawn — which is what we see now. Pelosi can't even get a garden-variety anti-Semitism resolution through the House, let alone a deal for the DREAMers, or something more serious, such as a reform of asylum law loophole abuse. She badly miscalculated on the government shutdown, imagining that voters would blame President Trump exclusively for that and a wall would never go up. She failed, and money is rolling in for both a wall and President Trump's re-election. And being a Washington swamp creature, she obviously never reads the news, let alone listens to even former Democratic Homeland Security secretaries about an emerging border crisis, which is what's fueling the turn of events for Trump. She's that out of touch. Did 60 Minutes, home of hard-hitting journalism, corner Pelosi on any of this — or even ask her nicely? No, it did not. Its interviewer focused instead on how to build up and flatter Pelosi, asking assorted Democratic congresspeople if they were "afraid" of her and showing nonsense about Pelosi's famous viral "clap." Pelosi assured she was "a manifestation of women in power." No challenges to that one. Yet a look at the record says far more than anything they could claim. File under useless journalism. The only thing exposed in it was what 60 Minutes obviously didn't want exposed, which is Pelosi's weakness. Image credit: Screen grab from 60 Minutes interview of Pelosi.