Nancy Pelosi’s Glass House In condemning Trump, the Speaker violates her own rules.

Posted By on July 17th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/nancy-pelosis-glass-house-11563318625

If you’re going to condemn someone else in politics, or any other walk of life, you should have your own house in order. Nancy Pelosi learned that the hard way on Tuesday as the Speaker violated House rules by accusing President Trump of sending “racist” tweets.

“Every single member of this institution, Democratic and Republican, should join us in condemning the President’s racist tweets,” Mrs. Pelosi said in teeing up a House resolution to denounce Mr. Trump that passed Tuesday evening largely along party lines. “To do anything less would be a shocking rejection of our values and a shameful abdication of our oath of office to protect the American people.”

Speaking of values, House rules say that Members may not call a President racist. Rep. Doug Collins (R., Ga.) rose to ask the Speaker to “rephrase” her comments. She refused, saying the House parliamentarian had approved them in advance. A flurry of conversation followed, with a Democrat even abandoning the chair presiding over the House lest he have to strike the Speaker’s words from the record. No one can remember that ever happening.

Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer eventually took the chair to say the Speaker’s words were “out of order.” But the Democratic majority then voted 232-190 not to strike Mrs. Pelosi’s words from the record, and it voted again by a similar margin to override House rules so she wouldn’t be banned from speaking on the House floor for the rest of the day as she should have been when a Member’s words are “taken down.”

What a farce. In her zeal to play to the media chorus that Mr. Trump is a “racist,” Mrs. Pelosi violates her own House rules on appropriate speech. But rather than apologize, she and her party override the rules to spare her embarrassment. All of which proves again that Donald Trump, for all of his excesses, has no monopoly on violating political norms.

Categorized under: POLITICS.
Tagged with: no tags.

Comments are closed.