Why Americans Love to Hate Nancy Pelosi

She's a tough, well-organized manager with a stable family life and a record of delivering for her popular president. She could emerge in time as one of the greats. But history isn't judging House Speaker Nancy Pelosi right now. Americans are, and lots of them don't like her.

It's a paradox with a lot of explanations, if not a lot of justice. Republicans have correctly concluded that she's an easier target than a president with approval ratings in the 60 percent range. The better she does her job, of passing bills important to her, her president and her party, the larger and more liberal she grows as a target. And the higher her profile rises, the worse the damage from incidents such as her unfortunate dispute with the CIA over what she was told about torture at a 2002 briefing.

The White House is thrilled with Pelosi, for good reason. She moved President Obama's stimulus bill through the House. She coaxed three House committees into producing one health-reform bill – astonishing not just for the potentially fatal turf battles avoided, but also for the good reviews the bill has received. Most recently, and most surprisingly, Pelosi managed to secure passage of a landmark energy and climate bill – a top priority for both her and Obama.

"She's one of the most effective speakers in the history of this country. She is extraordinary," says White House communications director Anita Dunn. Tom Mann, a congressional scholar at the Brookings Institution, says Pelosi's standing among House Democrats "couldn't be higher," and Republican attacks simply reflect the strategic calculation that she is more vulnerable than Obama.

GOP House members like to talk about Pelosi's liberal, gay-friendly hometown ("There's a big difference between San Francisco and the heartland," House GOP leader John Boehner, R-Heartland, aka Ohio, said recently). More generally, they attach her name to anything and anyone they want to tar. Imperiled House Democrats who voted for the energy bill are "Pelosi's puppets." Fundraising pitches raise alarms about "the Pelosi recession," "Nancy Pelosi's National Energy Tax" and "Nancy Pelosi's job-killing agenda."

The techniques didn't work in 2006 or 2008; the GOP lost House seats both years. But Republicans say the political dynamic this year is different, and they're right. Pelosi has become much better known, and familiarity has not bred favorability.

Three years ago, 40 percent in a Gallup Poll said they had never heard of Pelosi or had no opinion of her. In May of this year, only 15 percent said that. As for the rest, 34 percent viewed her favorably and 50 percent unfavorably.

"Congress is not a very popular institution. It's hard to have favorable numbers" if you lead Congress, says Gallup analyst Jeff Jones. That said, he says Pelosi used to have a net favorable rating and has the potential to rise again – in contrast with former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who has been in net negative territory since November 1994, even before he became speaker.

Pelosi is not a perfect politician, as evidenced by her tiff with the CIA. Contradicting the agency's account, she said she was not told at that 2002 briefing that waterboarding already was being used on suspected terrorists. Whether you believe her or not, and I do, the confrontation over whether the agency misled or lied to her was not necessary or helpful.

And some of Pelosi's allies are not good advertisements for the clean government she advocates. A House panel is investigating possible ethics violations by two of them, Reps. Charlie Rangel of New York and John Murtha of Pennsylvania. The FBI is investigating the defunct PMA Group, a defense contractor tied closely to Murtha, in connection with an alleged contracts-for-campaign-cash scheme.

Still, for reasons that I can't fathom, maybe because I agree with many of Pelosi's positions, the attacks on the speaker often seem to me mysteriously personal and vicious. When I recently asked Politics Daily readers why she engendered such dislike, taking care to mention that I wanted civil responses, they hurled descriptions like "arrogant," "idiot" and "two-faced snake in the grass."

And those were indeed civil answers, compared with comments from prominent conservatives such as, well, Gingrich. "I think she has lied to the House, and I think that the House has an absolute obligation to open an inquiry, and I hope there will be a resolution to investigate her," Gingrich said of the CIA flap in May on ABC News Radio. "I think this is the most despicable, dishonest and vicious political effort I've seen in my lifetime. . . . She is a trivial politician, viciously using partisanship for the narrowest of purposes, and she dishonors the Congress by her behavior."

That's over the top, even for Gingrich, who often is audaciously judgmental despite controversies over his own ethics and personal life. But he's not alone in his scorn. Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin has called Pelosi "Pelo-cchio" and "Know-Nothing Nan." Rush Limbaugh, asserting that Pelosi was shaking when reporters asked her questions about the CIA, allowed that might have been due to "Botox withdrawal." He once said he knew a way to reduce births "and it won't require any contraception. You simply put pictures of Nancy Pelosi . . . in every cheap motel room in America today. That will keep birth rates down because that picture will keep a lot of things down."

Pelosi has been in the House since 1987. She served on the House Intelligence Committee for 10 years. She has had long relationships with many members of both parties. She and her team are in constant touch with the White House staff, led by chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, a former congressman close to Pelosi, and laced with former Capitol Hill aides.

Her own aides describe a leader who is considerate toward colleagues, nurturing to her staff, focused on policy goals and philosophical about the modern-day speaker's role as a partisan lightning rod. As Pelosi shrugged in an interview last month with the Houston Chronicle, "Our success legislatively has driven the Republicans to distraction."

Republicans such as Paul Lindsay, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, say that success is due to "heavy-handed tactics." Case in point, they say, is the energy bill. The legislation, which puts a price on carbon emissions, is meant to reduce global warming and turn the economy toward new clean-energy businesses and industries. It passed, 219-212, after months of negotiations and accommodations for various industries and sectors.

Not to quibble, but heavy-handed is a relative term. What could possibly top the 2003 House vote on final passage of a new Medicare prescription drug program? At the normal 15-minute deadline, it was failing, so House GOP leaders kept the vote open for three hours – a record – while they pressed fellow Republicans to switch their votes.

Sure, Pelosi worked to corral votes on the climate bill. She met personally with moderate Republicans, some more than once. She managed to get eight GOP votes, which let eight vulnerable Democrats off the hook. By some estimates Pelosi had twice that many Democratic votes she could have called in had she needed them.

As she tried to cobble together a majority for a bill she believed could save both the economy and the planet, a bill she called visionary and transformative, Pelosi's placid demeanor belied the tensions and the stakes. In fact she managed to sound bland and civic-minded. The discussion among members is healthy, she said, and the conversations are informative.

"It's about the substance, it's about the inside maneuvering, it is about the outside mobilization, it's about listening to people to hear what their concerns are," she said of legislating. The next day she handed Obama his energy victory.

The House returns Tuesday after a 10-day recess that Pelosi spent in Napa, Calif., with her children and grandchildren. In the next few weeks, Obama will be looking to her for another miracle: passage of a health-reform bill at least as complicated and contentious as the energy bill, if not more so.

Pelosi looked ahead to the challenge with her usual mild understatement. "The legislative process is a dynamic one and it is what we came here to do," she said. "And it is frankly what we enjoy." Really? Then there's lots more fun ahead for Pelosi, with her patience and thick skin, and for the Republicans who are doing their best to shake the first and get under the second.