Breakfast with the Speaker and the progressive media

As I mentioned earlier today, I was attending the first Maria Leavey Breakfast of 2009 today with Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It was held in the Speaker's Office at the Capitol. There were approximately 15 new media types sitting around the table. Pelosi gave an overview of where things stand and then took questions. I didn't get a question, but with that crowd, all of the questions were pertinent and progressive. The meeting was on-the-record and the transcript and audio will be available here.

The last two people to get questions were particularly interesting to me.

Jane Hamsher asked the Speaker about a report in Newsweek claiming that Pelosi fast-tracked the stimulus bill over the objections of the Obama administration. The article cites a "senior Obama official." It's always an anonymous source, isn't it? Pelosi was having NONE of it:

I asked Speaker Pelosi about the assertion that the administration objected to her use of fast track this morning at an on-the-record meeting with new media representatives. "It couldn't be further from the truth," she said. Pelosi indicated that she could have moved it through much faster, but didn't. "We did it in one week and one day," she said. "We didn't start on inauguration day." She indicated that there had been committee hearings where Republicans had input, and it was silly to think that their objections would have been overcome by a longer process which would have resulted in delays that the White House expressly did not want.

The Speaker also responded to the anonymous "administration official" who said Pelosi made it clear she wanted to be informed any time the White House spoke to a House member. "I never said you can only talk to members before you talk to me -- I don't have that kind of time," she said. Pelosi encouraged them to be in free communication with members of the House and the Caucus. "They have a lot of ideas you should talk to them on," she indicated.

Pelosi also denied that she had an "enemies list," as the Politico indicated yesterday. I asked her how she would respond to the assertion in the Newsweek article by a Senior Obama Official who said that "dealing with Democrats has been tougher than dealing with Republicans." She said that we would continue to see a lot of these kinds of articles, and that it was serving someone's interest to float these stories.

That person is clearly serving their own interest, not Obama's, not the Democrat's and not the country's. Washington can be such a petty town.

Kerry Eleveld from The Advocate asked about the prospects for legislation to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" this year. The Speaker was pretty clear that there's work to do. She said, "We want to win on this one" and we need to "create an environment in which we can win." She needs to "make sure we have the votes" and will bring the bill to the floor "when we can win." She said we have to "work to create that atmosphere." The first two priorities are Hate Crimes and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), of which Pelosi said both will be "fully inclusive." She said people often say to her, you can be tolerant because you're from San Francisco. Her response is that "tolerant is almost an insulting word." She thinks it's being respectful. (Pelosi is right, of course. Christ, even Sarah Palin claimed she tolerated us. I think we can do better than that.)

All in all, I thought this was a productive way to start a very, very cold Tuesday morning. Pelosi is very good in this setting and she really knows of what she speaks.