ShareThisBy MARC SANDALOW
Friday, November 10, 2006
Mocking Rep. Nancy Pelosi 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 fund-raiser a few days later, "I don't want to see what hate looks like."
For the California lawmaker, ripping Bush has long been a part of her repertoire.
The House Democratic 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 American Enterprise Institute think tank. "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 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.
Yet there is little evidence of warmth, respect or policy agreements between the two. It is hard to imagine Pelosi and Bush, after demonizing each other for political purposes, developing the relationship forged between Democratic House Speaker "Tip" O'Neill and Republican President Ronald Reagan, who waged bitter policy battles during the 1980s but came to admire each other and build a friendship.
"They both had a professional admiration and attitudinal fondness for each other," said journalist John Farrell, author of "Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century."
"Tip had an ability to maintain friendship and civility while they were savaging each other. There was something about those earlier generations of politicians' ability to compartmentalize," he said.
Pelosi and Bush have had fleeting moments of collaboration.
When Pelosi traveled to Africa in the spring, Bush asked her to deliver a confidential message to South African President Thabo Mbeki regarding Iran, which she did, her aides said.
Pelosi attends breakfast meetings at the White House with the leaders of the House and Senate, though the frequency of the meetings _ which used to be held roughly once a month _ has tapered off. Bush stood beside Pelosi at a Capitol ceremony in 2005 to honor the late baseball star Jackie Robinson and joked how she had kidded him about keeping his remarks short.
On a social level, Pelosi and her husband, Paul, were among the guests this summer at a White House state dinner for then-Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi; a reception in December for Kennedy Center honoree Tony Bennett; and a congressional picnic in 2005.
Perhaps the closest moment between the two came during the first month of Bush's term, when the president took questions from congressional Democrats at a retreat, and Pelosi was so forceful during her inquiry about why he had suspended international family-planning funds that some conservatives criticized her for being disrespectful.
