ShareThisBy EDWARD EPSTEIN
San Francisco Chronicle
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Firebrand Republicans would have you believe that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi might have engaged in corruption for her husband, tried to grab a luxury "Air Force Three" jetliner for her personal use, consorted with an American enemy in Syria and disrespected the top American general in Iraq.
These and other charges Pelosi has faced reflect the rough political atmosphere in the U.S. Capitol, and experts say that even though the Republican allegations generally fade after a few days, they won't stop.
The reason, the experts add, is that Pelosi, as a San Francisco liberal, remains a prime villain to the GOP base. Her critics know that attacking her rallies the faithful, and they hope that one of the charges eventually will stick and cause Pelosi serious trouble.
Such attacks have happened in Congress over the past two decades, going back to the time of Speaker Jim Wright in the late 1980s. The Texas Democrat was forced out of office in a scandal surrounding earnings from his autobiography. Since then, top congressional lawmakers have faced partisan assaults that have brought down such once-powerful House GOP figures as Speaker Newt Gingrich and the majority leader, Tom DeLay.
"Pelosi has proven to be a more effective and popular speaker than Republicans anticipated, so it is no surprise that she has become a target of attacks and unsubstantiated rumors," said Thomas Mann of Washington's Brookings Institution, co-author of "The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track."
"I have yet to see anything with Pelosi that is even semi-tangible evidence of transgression," said Mann's co-author, Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute.
Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist, said Pelosi's popularity in national polls practically mandates that Republicans attack her. "They're trying to lower her very high favorable ratings," he said.
Republicans deny that the charges are politically motivated.
"I don't believe in charges for charges' sake," said Rep. Adam Putnam of Florida, the No. 3 House Republican as chairman of the House Republican Conference. "It's a kind of natural law that as you move up in the pecking order, people shoot at you."
The attacks on Pelosi, which often are picked up by the mainstream media and conservative bloggers, cover a lot of ground.
There was the allegation, which even President Bush made, that Pelosi's visit to Damascus, Syria, last month was dangerous foreign-policy free-lancing with President Bashar Assad, who Bush has labeled a terrorism supporter. Some Republican House members called for Pelosi to be prosecuted under the Logan Act for dealing with an enemy.
None of them mentioned that five Republican House members had visited Assad at about the same time as Pelosi, and the GOP member who was in Pelosi's delegation said Pelosi didn't say anything that would undermine U.S. foreign policy.
Earlier, there was a stink over the bill raising the federal minimum wage to $7.25. The original bill exempted American Samoa, which since the 1930s has been covered by its own, much lower minimum wage.
By far the largest industry in Samoa is tuna, and the biggest operator is Starkist, which is owned by Del Monte Foods, which happens to be headquartered in downtown San Francisco in Pelosi's district. The Republicans charged that there must be a connection somewhere between Pelosi and the exemption for Samoa.
But it doesn't appear the company's executives or any political action committees associated with them or the company have donated money to Pelosi. Nor is there evidence she intervened for Del Monte.
But the GOP criticism apparently hit a nerve, because subsequent versions of the bill, which is still pending, would gradually raise American Samoa's minimum wage.
Then there was the three-day furor over what plane Pelosi _ who is second in line of presidential succession _ should use to fly home to California. Republicans charged that she wanted to create her own luxurious "Air Force Three," as they dubbed it.
The stink was finally stopped by Bush spokesman Tony Snow _ who told fellow Republicans to lay off because in an age of terrorism, Pelosi was entitled to nonstop transportation to the West Coast.
The latest charge is that Pelosi has helped provide what could eventually be a windfall for her husband, Paul Pelosi.
The speaker inserted language into a pending water development bill authorizing $25 million for the Port of San Francisco to repair its ocean cruise terminal, among other things. Republicans charge that the work will benefit her husband's investments in property. And they say the authorization is a possible violation of new Pelosi-backed lobbying rules.
Pelosi's office said she obeyed the rules, that port officials came to her as the city's congresswoman to help the agency and that it's hard to see, for instance, how "repairing the slab panels, beams and concrete girders of the bulkhead portion" of a pier would help her husband's property.
Those making the charge, the Republican Study Committee, a group of 100 conservative GOP House members, admit they don't have evidence of wrongdoing, just suspicions they want debated.
"It's amazing," responded Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami. "They admit they have no proof, no evidence. They just go ahead and attack."
(E-mail Edward Epstein at eepstein@sfchronicle.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
