House Minority Leader Blasts Bush; GOP Fires Back

It's about time the Republicans find their voices and start talking back to the Democrats. For our non-American friends, "GOP" stands for "Grand Old Party" and refers to the Republicans.

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By Bobby Eberle
Talon News
May 21, 2004

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) delivered an attack aimed at President Bush both in a Capitol Hill news conference and in an interview given to her hometown newspaper Thursday afternoon.

Pelosi's remarks stood in sharp contrast with those of the president who made a trip to Capitol Hill yesterday to deliver a message meant to rally Republican lawmakers.

"I believe that the president's leadership and the actions taken in Iraq demonstrate an incompetence in terms of knowledge, judgment, and experience," Pelosi told reporters gathered to hear her remarks.

"This president should have known ... when you decide to go to war you have to know what the consequences of your action are and how you can accomplish the mission," Pelosi said.

The House Democratic leader added, "There was plenty of intelligence to say there would be chaos in Iraq following the fall of Baghdad."

"The results of his action are what undermine his leadership, not my statements," she said. "The emperor has no clothes. When are people going to face the reality?"

In a separate interview granted to the San Francisco Chronicle, Rep. Pelosi went even further, saying, "Bush is an incompetent leader. In fact, he's not a leader. He's a person who has no judgment, no experience and no knowledge of the subjects that he has to decide upon."

"Not to get personal about it, but the president's capacity to lead has never been there," Pelosi said.

"In order to lead, you have to have judgment. In order to have judgment, you have to have knowledge and experience. He has none," she added.

Pelosi has long been known for her opposition to the war in Iraq. She joined ten other House Democrats in voting against authorizing the president to use force to disarm Saddam's regime.

Following her vote against the war, she promised that Democrats would stand "shoulder to shoulder" with Bush in the war on terror.

Her lengthy remarks drew sharp responses from Republican spokesmen.

Bush-Cheney '04 Campaign Chairman Marc Racicot addressed John Kerry, saying, "As leader of the Democratic Party, John Kerry needs to repudiate Nancy Pelosi's efforts to blame American deaths in Iraq on the President. No one is to blame for these deaths in Iraq but the terrorists who are trying to prevent freedom from coming to the Middle East."

In response to Pelosi's remarks, Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie said, "To angry Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy, terrorists and militia aren't responsible for the deaths of U.S. soldiers, their commander-in-chief is. And our servicemen and women, in putting torture chambers 'under U.S. management,' are no different than a regime that systematically tortured, raped and killed its own people."

"The San Francisco/Boston Democrats led by John Kerry have now adopted Blame America First as their official policy," Gillespie continued in a statement issued to the press.

In comments published on his web site, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL) said, "Mrs. Pelosi has the right to disagree with President Bush, and it is clear that she has a different vision from the President. But her comments questioning the President's competence cross the line."

"We are in the middle of a war and in the middle of a political campaign. Mrs. Pelosi's comments were meant to inspire her political base. But who else do they inspire? That is the question she should ask herself," Hastert continued.

"Her comments are also wrong," Hastert said.

Further, Hastert said, "Was it incompetence that put Saddam Hussein in jail? Was it incompetence that disbanded the Taliban? Was it incompetence that spurred the fastest economic growth rate in twenty years? Was it incompetence that created the highest home ownership rate in history?"

"Nancy Pelosi should apologize for her irresponsible, dangerous rhetoric," House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) told CNN. "She apparently is so caught up in partisan hatred for President Bush that her words are putting American lives at risk."

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