"Marble Ceiling" (Nancy Pelosi) (2002)

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_http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/news/opinion/4575100.htm_
(http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/news/opinion/4575100.htm)
Posted on Fri, Nov. 22, 2002
The carving knives are already at work on Pelosi
By Ellen Goodman
BOSTON GLOBE
Isn't it nice to have a woman around the House? It's barely a week since
Nancy Pelosi became minority leader and there's already been a regime change
of metaphors. Out with sports; in with food.
On "Meet the Press," the woman who became head of the Democratic Household
cheerily compared her post-election fate to the patriotic poultry.
"You know the story. It's like the Thanksgiving turkey," she said. "You
bring it out, you get this great honor, everybody oohs and ahs ... and then
they begin to carve you up."
The slice-and-dicing began with the usual suspects. The Economist called her
"a disaster for the Democrats." The National Review foamed - and foam is the
right word - that she was a "latte liberal." Rush Limbaugh dubbed her "Miss
America" and his political-porn Web site featured her head on a beauty
queen's body.
Across the media spectrum she was characterized as a "San Francisco
Democrat" - wink, wink, nod. And the Democratic Party chair in South
Carolina basically asked her not to show her face in his state.
At this rate, Pelosi will be down to the wishbone any day now.
Meanwhile, what of the election of her Republican counterpart, Tom DeLay,
aka "The Hammer,""The Exterminator, "the "meanest man in Congress"? He
barely got a nick in his drumstick.
In some places, DeLay's rise to majority leader was so inevitable it was
deemed non-news. In other places, he was paired with Pelosi - San Francisco
Left and Sugar Land Right - as if the two were symmetrical dining partners.
This is the Tom DeLay who called the EPA a "Gestapo," said the Columbine
shooting was caused by birth control and day care, and that global warming
is a myth. He talks about the "Nobel Appeasement Prize," and doesn't want
kids to go to Texas A&M because there's sex on campus.
Shall I go on? He once described Democratic voters as a combo of
"Greenpeace, Queer Nation and the National Education Association" while
claiming the Republican Big Tent included "all kinds of people, from the
Christian Coalition to the Eagle Forum, from Arco to Exxon."
But somehow or other Pelosi, who believes in gay rights, was put on a par of
extremism with a DeLay, who doesn't believe in evolution. Pass the cranberry
sauce, please.
It wasn't just politics that ended up with Pelosi on the platter and DeLay
unscathed. It was also gender.
The mother of five was the first woman to break through what she called the
"marble ceiling." No  sooner had she won than people were asking, did you run
as a woman? This is  a question that Pat Schroeder famously answered with the
retort, "Do I have  a choice?"

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