Los Angeles Times

Johanna Neuman



House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco Democrat who last year became the first woman in U.S. history to be elected speaker, is on a book tour.

“Know Your Power: A Message to America’s Daughters,” charts her journey from stay-at-home mom to politician and urges young women to reach their potential.

But in pushing the book, Pelosi is likely to run into a gauntlet of outraged voters who want to know why she will not allow impeachment proceedings against President Bush.

The speaker kicked off her book tour on ABC’s “The View.” Asked by Joy Behar why she won’t impeach Bush, Pelosi said:

If somebody had a crime that the president had committed, that would be a different story … [You can’t impeach] unless you have the goods that this president committed these crimes.

We suspect Pelosi’s real argument against impeachment is that it would anger moderates whose votes are needed in November to keep Democrats in power, folks who might be annoyed that Congress is spending its time, money and energy on impeaching a president whose term is almost over instead of addressing core problems like gas prices, the war in Iraq and home foreclosures.

Still, a progressive blog called democrats.com is daring readers to intersect her while she’s out on book tour.

Giving readers a list of the speaker’s book tour appearances, democrats.com is urging “progressive” citizens and journalists to “pin her down” on why she thinks none of the 35 articles of impeachment offered by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) constitute a crime. In fact, democrats.com is holding a citizen journalism contest. The reward: up to $1,000. The task: get Pelosi to give “a direct and substantive answer to this question” and record it on video or audio tape for playback on democrats.com.”

— Johanna Neuman

Photo: Richard Drew/AP

(Original Article)