In demanding that Democrats who campaigned against NAFTA now vote for a package of new NAFTAs, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted that Democrats need to "take yes for an answer," according to CongressDaily.
Pelosi is now on record literally plagiarizing David Broder's columns. You may recall that it was Broder who four months ago wrote a screed for the Washington Post demanding Democrats pass the new NAFTAs. His screed was headlined "Can Democrats Take Yes for an Answer?"
There is a tiny silver lining to all this. Knowing that the Speaker of the House clearly does not listen to labor, environmental, human rights, anti-poverty and religious groups who oppose the deal, nor does she listen to her own rank-and-file Democrats who ran against NAFTA; nor does she listen to the American people who voted against NAFTA in the 2006 election - at least we know who Pelosi does listen to: David Broder.
And so, as people like Pelosi pat themselves on the back for making Washington pundits like David Broder smile, America is once again left to savor mere scraps just months after a "change" election. Here's the Hill newspaper on the courageous Democrats valiantly fighting the good fight:
"Rep. Mike Michaud (D-ME) seemed resigned to defeat. 'I'm a realist. A Democratic administration gave us NAFTA. There's going to be a Democratic Congress that will give us the Peru trade deal,' he said, adding that there was little time in the caucus meeting to discuss the deal. Rep. Dale Kildee (D-Mich.) said he hoped the working group could just convince enough Democrats to oppose the deal so that if it were approved, it would be with minority support in the Democratic Party." (emphasis added)
That's what we get - we get to pray that a bare majority of Democrats doesn't sell out their election 2006 promises to Wall Street's wishes. At least we have the Michauds and the Kildees, I guess, but man, this is pretty rough to watch.
Cross-posted from Working Assets