Americablog: Pelosi's First Year

by John Aravosis (DC) · 1/01/2008 12:57:00 PM ET · Link

AP does an interesting analysis of the boom and bust of Pelosi's first year as Speaker.

Nancy Pelosi crashed through a glass ceiling when she became the first female House speaker a year ago. That turned out to be the easy part.

The reality of leading a bitterly divided Congress at odds with a Republican White House is that victories are difficult and disappointments many. Chief among them for the liberal San Francisco Democrat was failure to deliver on her biggest goal: ceasing U.S. combat missions in Iraq and getting troops on their way home.

I'm really terribly divided on the issue of Pelosi and Reid and whether they are to blame for the past year's losses. Their staff will tell you (and they are correct) that's it's very hard to get conservative southern Dems on board a lot of progressive legislation.