Today's Must-Read: On Nancy Pelosi

I happen to regard Nancy Pelosi as the gods' blessing on the Democrats, and can hardly wait until she's Speaker again. This article takes a good look at the reality (as opposed to the right-wing hate campaign):

The 78-year-old former House Speaker knows what her critics say about her: that she’s too old, too “toxic,” too polarizing; that after three decades in Congress and 15 years leading her party’s caucus, she has had her turn and needs to get out of the way. But there’s a reason she sticks around. Had Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election, she says, “we’d have a woman at the head of the table.” When that didn’t happen, Pelosi realized that without her, there might not be a woman in the room at all.

Pelosi is one of the most consequential political figures of her generation. It was her creativity, stamina and willpower that drove the defining Democratic accomplishments of the past decade, from universal access to health coverage to saving the U.S. economy from collapse, from reforming Wall Street to allowing gay people to serve openly in the military. Her Republican successors’ ineptitude has thrown her skills into sharp relief. It’s not a stretch to say Pelosi is one of very few legislators in Washington who actually know what they’re doing.

This, I think, nails they key issue:

“If I weren’t effective, I wouldn’t be a target,” she says. . . . The only part that bothers her, she says, is when women who are thinking of running for office tell her they couldn’t withstand the abuse. “I say, ‘Forget what they’re doing to me, because you won’t be that much of a target. But you will be a target, because this is about power. And if you look like you’re making headway they will come after you. And it won’t be a pretty sight.'”

Read it.

Via Balloon Juice.