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TPMtv at Netroots Nation: Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Full Interview
Here is the full interview we conducted with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) earlier today:
Along with her thoughts on America's Iraq policy, we asked Speaker Pelosi what kind of global warming legislation she wants to see passed under a new president, what she's been doing to restore party unity following the tough Democratic primary, and whether or not she felt at all apprehensive stepping in front of the netroots crowd with the recent FISA vote a sore subject in many people's minds.
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Comments (11)
I appreciate the courage to press Pelosi on FISA.
I would've liked to know why she was blaming the Senate for a bill that originated in the House.
Also, I would've liked some talk on the constitution itself and how she can justify interfering in a co-equal branch of government to grant the perpetrators immunity.
July 19, 2008 8:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I too appreciate the courage to press Pelosi on the FISA issue however non-pressured it was for her. I was wondering if Glenn Greenwald was even invited to Netroots this year? Does anyone know if Mr. Greenwalds was invited by Markos?
She talk about the US Constitution, so are they planning on a repair bill, and what about the lawsuits?
It would have been nice to actually see Glenn sit down with her on this one. I would have like his expertise on her continued insistence that we needed to fix FISA. I mean, when we already have a FISA law, as Mr. Greenwald has often reminded us, so why did it need fixing?
July 19, 2008 8:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
I believe Greenwald is there. I don't know what panels he is speaking on, or what panels he is choosing to attend.
July 19, 2008 9:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pelosi said:"This bill we didn't had to have it"
What BS,hogwash,crap.Then why did you bring the bill to the house floor madam speaker.How much more of this BS must we the people put up with.I just couldn't watch anymore just sick,sick sick.
July 19, 2008 10:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Although it might have been impolite, the interviewer should have reminded Ms. Pelosi that the original FISA legislation never expired, and Ms. Pelosi was exceedingly dishonest to state (more than once) that all of the FISA legislation had expired. Ms. Pelosi was also exceedingly dishonest to state that "we needed to have a (FISA) bill" to modernize FISA because the FISA law that was already in existence, at the time the most recent FISA amendments were enacted, covered all electronic communications (even those that may have had extensive technological development since 1978). All of this disinformation by Ms. Pelosi is her attempt to try to conceal that the new FISA amendments (most specifically, with reference to Section 702 of Title VII of FISA) have been crafted to allow our government to engage in surveillance of most international communications of U.S. citizens and legal U.S. residents, without specific targets and without warrants and without probable cause, in many situations that require warrants based on probable cause under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. In those situations that are determined by our government to involve suspicious communications, the information that is obtained from the illegal surveillance will provide probable cause to obtain warrants. In simple terms, our government is using massive illegal surveillance under the new FISA amendments to obtain probable cause for warrants under FISA, and this subversion of the Constitution is all done behind closed doors. Almost half of the Democrats in the Senate and in the House of non-Representatives conspired with the Bush Administration to legalize the illegal Terrorist Surveillance Program. Ms. Pelosi knows that she is complicit in a legacy of deceit, and that is why she has such a difficult time trying to distract attention from the issues central to the new FISA amendments.
July 19, 2008 10:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Speaker's excuses for passing a rotten FISA bill are just that: excuses, and pretty poor ones to boot.
Blaming the fact that under her leadership, the house passed a bill it should not ever have passed on the Senate is simply lame. The House does not have to pass anything it believes is bad legislation and if they are resolute in their position they have all the power that the Senate has and by their refusal to pass bad Senate bills thus excerc ises it's power to force real (not imaginary like in the FISA bill) compromise.
Simply and plainly put, she is manufacturing bullshit to cover up the fact that it was her Majority Leader Hoyer, who fashioned this capitulation with her guidance, cooperation and imprimatur. It is even more humliating that the sophomoric Kit Bond of MO is the one who so badly snookered her, Hoyer and the rest! How embarassing! The guy is a half wit and a second rate Senator. He is certainly no skilled negotiator!
I wish David had asked her if the $30,000 in contributions from the telecoms had any impact on her sudden need to "protect the country"? There was no need at all to pass any bill the expiration of all provisions notwithstanding and she knows that very well. She and many other Democrats made that very clear before the payments from the telecoms started flowing into her coffers. She sold out the Constitution and the 4th amendment particularly for a few pieces of silver.
She is responsible not only for the disgraceful FISA bill that passed, but for the disgraceful conduct of herself, the rest of the Democratic leadership and of the House in general. For shame Speaker Pelosi! For bitter shame! You will be remembered in history as the female Neville Chamerlain who sold out her country and her Constitution for $30,000 in dirty contributions from criminsals who spied on our people and bought their immunity after the fact from YOU.
And the FISA bill is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the failure of the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate to achieve ANY of the things they were elected to achieve. The reason Congress is held in even lower esteem than the tyrant Bush is because of the hypocrisy of Democrats in Congress, it is because of their craven calculating and their lack of courage and conviction about anything beyond their own reelections. Why she is greeted as a friend by any self respecting Democrat is beyond me.
July 19, 2008 11:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
David's question on FISA is excellent:
Does anyone know if the President issued a signing statement when he signed the FISA bill into law?
July 20, 2008 1:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well I don't want to criticize because I don't know how well I would have held up being face to face with political power and fame, but for Josh to write that David 'pressed' Pelosi with his one or two polite questions, all the while letting her bullshit 'answers' go unchallenged is laughable, and sets a very low standard for any future TPM interviews.
July 20, 2008 2:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Pressed" does not mean "attacked". I think David did press her, but was not grilling her in an attempt to "get" her or to lecture her. He allowed her to hang herself with her pitiful and threadbare excuses for her utter and complete humiliating surrender to the worst forces in American politics. I say the man did an excellent job! Try to understand his role, vs "what she deserves". I have no love lost for her but people ought to try to have some charity for him.
One of the most interesting and telling things about the interview is that she hands him all that pap on FISA and clearly is very comfortable and feels completely safe in providing such tripe to him for consumption by people like us. She signaled clearly she understands why people are upset, but she also displays the arrogance of DC by dismissing it as a matter that she now understands but that she didn't when she was in the position all of us are in now. The real difference is she now has reason to be a hypocrite, incentives if you will and her concern is elsewhere (like on maintaining her power and getting lots of campaign cash) as opposed to the trifles we are concerned about like our liberties and our Constitution. In the long run, she will pay for this arrogance many times over. But for now we must be content with the information she has provided so that we may hang her with it later. Had David not done this interview and put her at ease as he clearly did, then we would have none of this information to even think about let alone discuss.
July 20, 2008 9:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Asking relevant follow-up questions that point out inconsistencies and falsehoods does not mean 'attack'. I agree with much of your post, but your position on how gingerly the press should deal with those in power seems overly deferential to me.
July 21, 2008 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can see by this TIME's article that Nancy got heckled, which isn't good, but I think Code Pink at least felt like their freedom of speech issues were respected.
However, if someone is going to interview Nancy Pelosi, why not be able ask the questions we need about the FISA bill? We all know the press refuses to ask meaningful questions anymore but certainly we can all remember at time when the press didn't have a problems grilling Bill Clinton. And Bill Clinton didn't have problems answering to reporters. Since we don't have any a hard hitting press anymore, I had to wonder, did Pelosi outright rejected answering questions for bloggers about the FISA Bill or did TMP just not ask any hard questions?
Pelosi basically repeated all the same lies about the FISA Bill all over again. So why couldn't TMP do an agressive follow-up?
July 20, 2008 2:51 AM | Reply | Permalink